Senior Taryn Houtz has been an active member of the Milton Cheer Team throughout her time at Milton.
“I started [cheerleading] in fifth or sixth grade,” Taryn said. She said that she loved going to football games and watching the older girls dance and have fun. “I just thought that was so cool, and I wanted to do it,” she added.
“It’s hard mentally and physically,” Taryn said. The thing that helps the most is the fact that she gets to go to practice knowing that she has her teammates, she added. She said it also helped get her through the school day knowing that she had cheer practice after, and she gets to see her coach and teammates.
“At some points it is overwhelming, especially around January, due to Districts, Nationals and States,” Taryn said. If she has free time in a class, she works on other work to stay ahead, she added. She added that during cheer season, she sees her teammates and coaches more than she does her family and friends.
Taryn said that after a tough practice or a competition loss, she tries not to think about it. She added that she knows she did everything she could in her control and that she tried her best, and when she is in the wrong that she tries to own up to it, which “helps the team a lot.”
“I feel like being a team player is having trust in each other, and getting success out of it, hoping and praying that you can trust everyone,” she said.
Taryn said that to handle the pressure of cheer competitions, she likes to just take a deep breath in and out and hope for the best.
“I look up to [Cheerleading Coach] Tracy [Ferguson] because she is such a hard worker. Her whole life is about cheer, and I truly look up to her because she inspires me,” she said.
This year the Milton Cheerleading team took second at Districts, falling to Southern Columbia, Taryn said. The team had one fall, and they expected Southern Columbia to win because they are “really good,” she added.
The team also went to Nationals in Texas this year. “It was kind of a blur for me,” said Taryn of the experience. The team placed fifth at States this year, “which is the highest any team at Milton has ever gotten,” she added.
Taryn is in Criminal Justice 3 class; she has been in this class since her sophomore year, said Criminal Justice Teacher Mr. Philip Davis. “She is an excellent student and has a 100% grade point average in her three years in my class,” he said.
Taryn is also a leader in the Criminal Justice class, as she is a teaching assistant in the Criminal Justice 1 class. “She is an extremely hard worker that puts forth her best effort in everything that she does,” Mr. Davis said. “She has a great personality and gets along with a variety of different people.”
Taryn will be going to Commonwealth University in Bloomsburg to major in criminal justice. She said she then would like to go on to the state police to be a criminal investigator.
