Volunteers bring cheer back to Athens

Justin
A. Hinkley • The Enquirer • July 22, 2009

A group of volunteers is trying to give Athens High School seniors a chance to play their sport one last time
before graduation day.

The Athens school board scrapped competitive cheerleading
along with boys and girls golf in June 2008 as part of $382,000 in cuts to
balance a deficit budget. For the 2008-09 school year,
volunteers Beth Burgett and Robin Waterstradt stepped in to help.

The Athens Education Association, the
district's teacher's union, had to allow the cheer coach -- a unionized, paid
position -- to become a non-union volunteer. The union gave the OK and the
six-member Athens Indians cheer team took second place in the Big 8
Conference and placed sixth in the district. Five of the girls were named to
the all-conference team.

Now, four of the girls are heading into
their senior year this fall, and the team wants the school and union to give
the volunteer program the go-ahead once again.

"It's just that it's my senior
year," said 16-year-old Elaine Burgett, Beth's
daughter. "It would be awesome if I could have competitive cheer for one
more year. It's our favorite sport, all of us girls."

"It's a good team sport; it teaches
the girls to work together," Beth Burgett
said. "It fosters life skills they'll use forever."

Athens Principal-Superintendent Rich Franklin
said the AEA is considering the request, but the union is bogged down in
salary and benefit discussions during the district's budget crisis.

Still, Franklin said, "I would be surprised if they didn't
approve it."

AEA representative Craig Drawheim could not be reached for comment on Tuesday.

Without union approval, the school board
can't sanction the sport to compete officially in Big 8 events, Board
President Dennis Stanton said on Monday.

But keeping the program as a club sport
would limit the number of opponents and events in which the girls could take
part, Beth Burgett said.

Also, without school board sanction, the
team cannot host fundraisers in the school's name, Stanton said.

Beth Burgett
said she and Waterstradt support travel and the
team has uniforms. But they still need to fund roughly $100 for every
competitive event. Fundraising is important, she said.

For the girls, however, the most
important thing is being able to play.

"It's different to be with my
friends on the team," Elaine Burgett said.
"All the girls, they're all my best friends."