HP Cheer Celebrates Century of Success on And Off The Field
Highland Park will celebrate a century of cheerleading this fall, and the growth of a nationally recognized program that has energized the community both on and off the field.
HP Cheer’s centennial celebration will kick off at 5 p.m. on Oct. 17. Events that evening will include a 100 Year Pep Rally, a screening of The History of HP Cheer Documentary, a tour of the new, state-of-the-art cheer practice facility and locker room, and a centennial celebration party.
The festivities will wrap up on Oct. 18 with the annual Cheerleaders & Scotsmen Hamburger Supper before the Scots football team’s Homecoming Game.
Planning for the celebration has been in the works since January. Along the way, the cheerleading program has encountered challenges and unearthed treasures, Booster Club Communications Chair Kerry Peterson said.
The program has so far called upwards of 650 alumni back to campus, a task made more difficult by the absence of any archive for HP cheer. To locate cheer alums, members of the 100 Years Committee photographed a century of cheerleading yearbook spreads. They then worked with the Highland Park Education Foundation to match the cheerleaders in the photos with the records of people returning for reunions, often under married names.
Committee members have dug up almost every cheerleading uniform dating back to the 1930s. The only exception is bellbottom pants from the 1970s, and Peterson said they haven’t given up on tracking down a pair.
The program also plans to share finds from its archives, including copies of posters that cheerleaders used to drum up votes in the 1940s, when students were elected to the squad by their peers.
Centennial planning has taken hundreds of hours, Peterson said. But the effort has been worth it to celebrate a program whose multiple championship titles from the National Cheerleaders Association are just the beginning of its far-reaching impact.
“There’s no game for us. We do compete in our own competitions, and we win them,” said committee member Abby Ruth. “But what’s so special is that we get the privilege of being a part of everybody else’s wins, and everybody else’s losses, too.”
Both Ruth, who graduated from Highland Park High School in 1999 and now owns Mustang Cheer, and her mother were Highland Park cheerleaders. Ruth’s eighth grader also aims to try out for a spot on the squad.
Multi-generational cheer families aren’t uncommon, and neither is post-HP success. The high achieving group of cheerleading alums includes Richard D. “Dick” Bass, who was the first person to climb the tallest mountain on every continent, known as the “seven summits,” international DJ Lucy Wrubel, and Amber Venz Box, a tech pioneer who cofounded a billion-dollar marketing company.
Alums have said cheerleading gave them the confidence to realize they could achieve their dreams, but many favorite memories are of encouraging other athletes to reach their own potential.
“Highland Park High School is a very big deal among cheer programs nationwide, very renowned, very esteemed,” Ruth said. “But, again, just to be a part of all the successes, not just the successes of the program, is just something really special.”
