By Lauren, Senior

The 2012 Cheer Camp was held at Missouri Western University in Saint Joseph, Missouri. At this camp, I had the pleasure to work on my cheerleading fundamentals, meet new people, and spend quality time with my squad. I find that working on cheerleading in the summer can really benefit our performance throughout the school year. The National Cheerleaders Association (NCA) camp improved our skills and brought us closer together as a team.

Like everything else, hard work pays off and the NCA staff noticed. The following cheerleaders displayed superior qualities in very important aspects of cheer. These aspects include, motions, jumps, dance, stunts, tumbling, and leadership. The seven girls of our squad who were nominees for All-American were CeCe Asher, Maddie Wagner, Becca Funk, Carly Taylor, Miranda Baniewicz, Nina White, and myself.

Miranda and CeCe made the All-American team and CeCe made Top All-American for having the highest score. CeCe was asked to join the NCA staff for next summer.  She will have to fill out the applications by December 2012 and try out in the spring of 2013. 

As a team we brought home many other awards.  We received a National Championship bid to compete in the NCA Senior and Junior High National Championship on January 12-13, 2013 in Dallas, Texas at the Dallas Convention Center.  We won the S.P.O.T. award for displaying excellent skills in spotting and stunt technique. We were presented with the Technical Excellence Award for displaying superior skills in tumbling.  At the end, during evaluations each squad is given a ribbon, showing their level of performance.  We received the Superior ribbon, which is the highest ribbon level with very little mistakes and nearly a perfect routine.  We were given four Superior ribbons and four Excellent ribbons.

The last award we were presented was the Herkie Award.  The Herkie Award is named after the NCA founder, L.R. Herkimer and is awarded to the one squad who exemplifies the qualities upon which NCA is founded.  These qualities are leadership, values, and teamwork.

I think I can speak for the whole squad in saying, we brought back new skills, new memories, and new trophies. We came as a squad, but left as a family. We have learned some valuable cheerleading skills that we cannot wait to display in this upcoming school year.  

Maur Hill - Mount Academy is a Catholic, international, college preparatory, boarding and day school located in Atchison, Kansas. Founded in 1863 by the Benedictine brothers and sisters, MH-MA provides a well-respected education to students from across the country and internationally in a safe, supportive, college prep environment.