Band, color guard, FFA, and now… cheer?

Junior Hailee Hill has officially added cheerleading to her list of high school activities after stepping in for an injured cheerleader and competing with the squad at the UIL contest in Dallas. Hill, who has always been a very involved hornet, says that she gladly, yet hesitantly, accepted the invite to help out the team when she was asked by Coach Lisa Tullis the day before they left for Dallas.

She had two practices to learn her part of the routine while other cheerleaders made changes to fill the spots of their injured teammate, Alee Winniford.

“I felt kind of like a bunny the whole time with all the jumping we did,” Hill said.

Her main job was to do the flag raising, lowering, turning, and jumping. Hill claimed that the main reasons she was chosen to fill the gap were a) because she was part of the color guard, so she knew her way around counting and spinning a flag and b) she just so happened to be the perfect size to fit Winniford’s uniform.

Along with cheering with the team, she got to participate with them in their fun activities.

“I have a couple of friends on the team, but the rest of the team was super kind to me as well,” Hill said.

They obviously couldn’t go to Dallas solely to cheer; the team dined at Woodshed and Yogurtland, along with visiting a few beautiful parts of the city, making Hill feel as though she had always been part of the team the entire time.
With the help of Hill, the team returned to Hooks at 1 A.M. on Friday with a final placement of 11th out of 48 teams overall.