10
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Thursday, January 9, 1960
Lights, camera, action
Sandra Gresham, Prairie Village senior majoring in the theater, appears with Dennis James, star of "The All-American College Show" to be televised Friday.
Liberal cheerleaders
Lean to the left, rah! rah!
By CAROL SCHOENBECK
Kansan Staff Writer
Farm boys, weight lifters, beauty queens and socially conscious liberals may be found in the ranks of cheerleaders, according to an article in the Jan. 6 issue of a national sports magazine.
Although not mentioned in the article, the KU yell leaders and pom-pon girls are similar in many ways to the squads discussed by the magazine.
Sports Illustrated examined cheerleaders and their campus positions at Purdue University, the University of Mississippi, the University of Georgia and the University of California at Los Angeles. They use their positions as cheerleaders to be elected beauty queens, to express peace loving philosophies and as a training ground for testing crowd reactions to themselves as performers.
"The legacy at Purdue is one of clean living and hard work," a Purdue administrator said.
To the south is Georgia where being a cheerleader is "more rigorous, more time-consuming, more dangerous and more fun." All male cheerleaders are members of the gymnastics
squad and a prerequisite for selection is being able to do continuous backflips for 50 vards.
Although the female members of their squad are usually the campus beauty queens, they must go through a rough and demanding training program doing flips, handsprings, cartwheels and splits.
As at Purdue and Georgia, the Mississippi cheerleaders are usually the product of hard-fought political campaigns. "Becoming a cheerleader there is a social-political activity where the sweat is largely devoted to attaining the position, not performing it," Sports Illustrated noted.
At Ole Miss, cheerleading is the biggest of all campus elections. Students' reputedly spend over $1,000 to be elected.
To the west, UCLA seems to be untypifying the "typical" cheerleader image. The present head cheerleader ran as a hoax. Outfitting himself in blue and gold custom-made overalls, he was called "Engineer Geoff" because "the locomotive was so out it had to be in."
The long-haired cheerleader's only political cheer is a nonviolent yell: "Lean to the
left, Lean to the right, Stand up,
Sit down."
Where in this range, from conservatism to liberalism, do KU's pom-pon girls and yell leaders fit?
Paul Clendening, Kansas City senior and yell leader, said he is a cheerleader because he loves sports and is proud of KU.
"We represent the University wherever we go, so naturally the administration wants us to look as nice as possible and to project a good image," he said.
As Shirley Gossett, Overland Park senior and head pom-pon girl, pointed out, KU's squad is elected after trying-out before a student and faculty committee, therefore, politics really don't exist in the selection.
"I tried out and was selected as a freshman never having been a cheerleader before. I guess I'm proof that politics really aren't a factor."
While conservative in appearance, the pom-pon girls and yell leaders have tried some liberal cheers. The "blood makes the grass grow" and "kill, Vernon, kill" cheers have brought some widespread condemnation, especially from the alumni.
Food for thought
A-plus with the readin', ritin' and 'rithmatic crowd. The "Best Chicken GOING!" is pupil-pleasin'. Chicken that's just a whisper crisper, glistening like it's tanned in an old black iron skillet. Nice and easy for moms, too. Pick up plenty for second helpin's. Minnie's word for it . . . "Dee-licious!"
FREE DELIVERY
for purchases over $5.00
1730 W.23rd
843-8200
American Youth:
Its Outlook Is
Changing the World
The subject of this month's issue of Fortune magazine
Much has been said, and much has been published, about today's "alienated" youth and society. But to some extent, two important questions remain unanswered: Is this, indeed, a special kind of younger generation? If so, what will be its impact on U.S. life over the next decade?
To find the answers to these questions, Fortune has devoted most of its January issue to Youth and Its View of America. Here, in a single issue of Fortune, is perhaps the most thorough and searching analysis of the topic ever presented by a magazine. Some of the areas on which this special study focuses:
Why student activists demand reforms
The revolution on the square campus
Youth and the pop culture cult
Parents of the Forties
What blue-collar youth thinks
A new style of campus living
How youth is reforming business
Don't miss this special, single-subject January issue of Fortune. It's on sale now!
FORTUNE