Lennard High School Longhorn cheerleaders raising funds for a trip to London are, from left, Ayana Lugo, Avianna Poleto, Brooke Bethune, Kyra Rountree, Mikele Younger and Taylor Land.

Lennard All-American Cheerleaders raising funds to participate in London parade

By STEVE JACKSON

Six Lennard High cheerleaders — Ayana Lugo, Avianna Poleto, Brooke Bethune, Kyra Rountree, Mikele Younger and Taylor Land — are busy outside their normal duties of providing pep and spirit for varsity and junior varsity Longhorns.

According to Lennard Athletic Department secretary Terrina Taylor, the half dozen have been selected to go to London, England, on Jan. 1, 2019, after their designation as “All American Cheerleaders” this past summer in national competition. Now the young ladies face the task of raising money to fund the overseas trip. 

These ladies are juniors and seniors and have been cheering for many years, some since they were 5 years old, cheering for Little League teams around the South Shore areas. All have been varsity cheerleaders since their freshman year at Lennard High School. These ladies were chosen this summer out of about 100 girls from UCA summer camp to attend the New Year’s Day parade in London. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and honor to go to London and represent not only Lennard High School but the cheer community of the U.S.A., said Taylor.

The trip cost for each girl is $3,200, and they are working hard to raise the funds so all six can go and experience this trip together. They are doing several fundraisers to help offset the expenses, one of them being a Drag Queen Bingo night Oct. 16 at Hamburger Mary’s in Brandon. 

The future is bright for all of these ladies as they are active in their school in many different clubs and organizations like National Honor Society, Key Club, and Student Government as well as participating in dual enrollment at Hillsborough Community College, maintaining a 3.00 GPA or higher, and with aspirations of attending colleges like Florida Gulf Coast University, Harvard, University of South Florida, Loyola University and also the U.S. Air Force.

The Lennard cheerleaders also won the Top Banana award at the summer camp. Out of the 17 teams attending, the Lennard cheerleaders took second place in their division for their style and performance. This cheer team is off to another good start this fall with football varsity games on Fridays and junior varsity games on Thursdays. The new first-year coach is Michael Tunstall.