WHS cheerleaders selected for 2018 Shrine Bowl ...

Two Waukon High School cheerleaders have been selected as part of the Iowa Shrine Bowl All-Star Cheer Squad and will be cheering at the 2018 Iowa Shrine Bowl All-Star Football Classic to be played July 21 at the UNI-Dome on the campus of the University of Northern Iowa (UNI) in Cedar Falls. That Waukon High School pair is pictured above and includes, left to right, juniors Michaela Dehli and Brittney Troester.

In addition to football and cheerleading, the annual Shrine Bowl benefits the Shriner’s Hospitals for Children by raising sponsorship funding that is donated directly to the Shriner Hospital program. Each individual participant in the Shrine Bowl is asked to raise $800 in sponsorship and/or donation funding.

Try-outs for this year’s Shrine Bowl All-Star Cheer Squad were held in October of last year at the Za-Ga-Zig Shriner’s Temple in Altoona. A panel of judges from the Iowa Cheer Coaches Association (ICCA), who will also later help coach the cheer squads at the Shrine Bowl event, chose 45 cheerleaders from those try-out performances. In mid-July this year, the selected cheerleaders will meet at UNI and learn a choreographed routine and various cheers through website videos provided one month before reporting to the week’s event. The routine and cheers are performed during the Shrine football game Saturday afternoon.

The cheerleaders, as well as the football players selected for the All-Star Classic, are able to participate in a number of activities hosted by the Shriners that week. Some of those events include the Shrine Bowl Parade, an Honors Banquet, and mini-camps where those high school participants interact with hospital children. Submitted photo.