A Cheering Marching Mustang

When Brennia Ridenour was in sixth grade, her older sister Courtney was a senior in band and cheer. Ridenour would watch every single football game her sister cheered at and thought to herself every time that it looked like so much fun. 

Ridenour, now a junior, joined the Mini Mustangs in third grade which is a group of young girls who the cheer team teaches how to be a cheerleader. The group was taught how to have positive attitudes, and how to perform a couple different cheers, called “Cookie Monster” and “Let’s Go Mustangs.” Ridenour’s older sister was one of the cheerleaders who helped them learn all of the moves. “It made the Mini Mustangs so much better for me because every time I went, my sister was there teaching me to be just like her.” The group would stand down on the field and watch the cheerleaders do all of their different moves. At one home game the Mini Mustangs performed a half time show and showed everything that they had learned. Performing during halftime opened up a new door In Ridenour’s life and showed her how much she wanted to get back out there and do it again in high school.

Early on in Ridenour’s life her older sister Courtney went to Anamosa. At Anamosa her sister did marching band and would come home and practice. She would march around in the backyard, and Ridenour would follow her out there and march with her. “She always found a way for it to be fun with me which made me love band even when I was so little,” Ridenour said. Because of that, Ridenour joined concert band, and chose the flute as her instrument because it looked like the easiest. 

Now, Ridenour is a junior in high school who does both band and cheer. She still plays the flute and in her sophomore year Ridenour joined marching band as well. “I like marching band more than concert because it’s more active, with more competitions and I get to meet so many new people,” Ridenour said. Because she does both band and cheer, Ridenour performs during halftime, playing her flute in her cheer outfit.

One of her favorite memories from marching band is from her first year in it. Ridenour and the rest of the marching band rode down to Chicago in a charter bus so they could perform in Chicago’s Thanksgiving parade in front of thousands of people. Before they performed everyone went to some museums all around Chicago. They also had tons of fun messing around in the hotel afterwards. Once they were in line for the parade the marching band waited for their turn to start moving, until they finally got the signal to start walking. They marched for 30 minutes until finally reaching the end of the parade.

 In May of 2023 the marching band will take another charter bus all of the way to Washington D.C. That’s a total of a 15 hour bus drive. The first thing they’ll do when they get there is take a tour of the city. The next day they will explore and tour the Holocaust Memorial museum. Soon after, they will go to the site of Abraham Lincoln’s assasination. On Memorial Day the group will tour the Smithsonian Museum. Next they will march in the Memorial Day parade in front of the White House. Finally the group will visit the Arlington National Cemetery before heading back home on the bus. Ridenour is most excited for the bus ride to D.C. because she will be surrounded by her friends and hangout the whole round trip.