Ilion High School Traditions
Cheerleaders
 |
 |
Ilion 1963 Cheerleaders
Check out all the
|
"Grr fight," has been resounding through the halls, of Ilion High School for many years. Even in the era when our high school was in the famous old Morgan Street Building, the student body put aside their work long enough to yell "Beat Herkimer", or "Beat Little Falls" which at that time was the traditional rival. In the early days the students volunteered to be cheerleaders. Those cheerleaders had no uniforms and few cheers. Usually they yelled these cheers from their seats. No organized cheering, however, was in the air of "Hunt's Field" until 1917. The first cheerleaders were Helen Mentz, Lee Becker and Edwin Ashley.
|
Class of 1967 P pep rally with boy cheerleaders
|
As the years have passed, cheerleaders took on a more important part at the games. For many years, most of the cheerleaders were boys and the cheering was impromptu. Then girls began to have an interest in this activity and dominated it ever since. Boys reappeared as cheerleaders during Homecoming games, with the Class of 1953. Dick Hall, Ray Morton, and Dick Merchant helped lead cheers at the Herkimer game. The Homecoming cheerleaders made a "Dummy", representing the Homecoming game visiting team and burned it in the Homecoming bonfire. The Class of 1967 shows off one of the dummies in this photograph. Expeditions to capture and recapture mascots and dummies were part of the fun in the Ilion-Herkimer rivalry.
(Notice that Ilion is mentioned first, even though it follows Herkimer alphabetically!)
Ilion Class of 1967 Cheerleaders
|
|