By Mark Carpenter
People’s Defender
The 2023-24 Peebles Junior High School cheerleading squad left the county on Sunday morning to travel to Big Walnut High School in Sunbury, Ohio. They returned Sunday evening with a police escort as state champions.
The Peebles Junior High squad competed on Sunday in a seventh and eighth grade state championship cheer competition, sponsored by the Ohio Association of Secondary School Administrators (OASSA). According to PJH cheer coach Jodi Bird, the competition was open to every school in the state and was divided by small school/big school, depending on enrollment, with a total of 35 teams altogether and it was the Peebles girls who came out as the first place winners in the small school building division.
The building division consists of one and a half minutes of a dance routine plus one minute of cheer, a total of two and a half minutes on the mat. Jumps, tumbling, stunts and pyramids were required elements of the routine and the Peebles squad excelled in all.
Peebles Junior High is coached by Bird and Haven Dailey and the state champion squad members include: Kiera Bird, Laci Blanton, Amryn Carroll, Chloe Cooper, McKenslee Cooper, Riley Davis, Talashia Elkins, Kyliemae Hayslip, Allena Leggett, KiAnna McKinley, Kendall Myers, Makenna Purvis, Olivia Ward and Nevaeh Wilburn.
(Photo courtesy of Justin Cooper)
