Cheer meet
honors late coach

Sunday,
January 27, 2008

By
Dean Holzwarth

The Grand Rapids Press

KENTWOOD -- Competitive cheer coaches make an impact on the lives
of high school athletes.

Randy Orr was one of those coaches
that devoted his time and passion toward the sport for 18 years.

Orr passed away last spring at the
age of 40 after a bout with liver cancer, but his memory lived on at
Saturday's Lake Michigan Competitive Cheer Officials 5th Annual Scholarship
Meet at East Kentwood.

The first-annual Randy Orr
Scholarship was handed out, in addition to eight other scholarships that went
to deserving seniors.

Sixteen varsity teams competed,
and $9,500 was raised.

Forest Hills coach Leslie Landis was a close
friend of Orr for 22 years and said he knows how he would have reacted to the
support.

"He would've been overwhelmed
at the response and the attendance and the outpouring of love from the
community in giving this scholarship in his name," Landis said.
"Here at East Kentwood it's even more
special because he coached here and he's greatly missed."

Orr guided St. Joseph Lake
Michigan Catholic to two Class D state championships in 1995 and 1996.

He also coached at East Kentwood for four years before current coach Stacy
Sheler took over.

Orr would've been proud of his
former team's accomplishments on Saturday. The Falcons won the Division 1
title by tallying a three-round score of 783.69.

"Randy was loved throughout
the cheer community in the state of Michigan
and there aren't many coaches that don't know who Randy was,"
Sheler said. "He was a remarkable guy and he
made anybody smile when he walked into a room.

"His teams were always
exciting and he always did a great job with round 3. It was hard to come to East Kentwood after him because he had built the
program up to be very good and I had to fill those shoes."

East Kentwood senior Kelsie
Clark was awarded a $1,500 scholarship in Orr's honor. She will be attending
the University
of Michigan.

"I hadn't heard about him,
but I'm really honored to get this ," Clark said. "It's very exiting and this will
really help me."

The other scholarship winners were
given $1,000 and they included Taylor Argo (Forest Hills Central), Kelly
Dotson (Jenison), Kristin Winn (Forest Hills Northern), Sheryl Armock (Sparta), Olivia Holwerda (Grand Rapids Christian), Emily Gravelin (Cedar Springs), Lizz Roelse (Rockford)
and Carly Barnes (Unity Christian).

East Kentwood defeated runner-up Rockford (763.44) and third-place Jenison
(763.24), and scored a team-high of 312.5 in round 3.

"I'm extremely happy," Sheler said. "Our expectations today were to score
higher than our last meet and just to be clean in each round. They did that
and winning is a benefit."

Cedar Springs finished with a
score of 710.866 in Division 2 and edged Kenowa Hills (709.75). Zeeland West
won in Division 3 /4 with a total of 639.584.