Olivia Burnside | Kalama Hines, EastIdahoNews.com
POCATELLO — Olivia Burnside is a senior at Pocatello’s Highland High School. This year, her third as a member of the team, she helped lead the Rams to their first 5A state cheerleading championship.
Burnside began cheerleading as a sophomore after more than a decade of dancing ballet.
As she explained, Burnside began dancing when she was 3 and was still devoting much of her time and energy to the craft when the COVID-19 shutdown hit.
“When I wasn’t doing it, I realized I was a little happier,” she told EastIdahoNews.com, adding that she thought, “maybe I don’t want to be doing this for the rest of my life. But I still wanted to stay active and do a sport, and I heard all these awesome things about Highland’s cheer team.”
While there are facets of her ballet background that helped Burnside shift to cheerleading — most notably balance and flexibility — there were things that dancing never offered.
“Cheer is all about being a team, I always wanted to be in that sort of environment,” she said.
The Highland High School 2022-23 cheerleading team. | Courtesy Kim Tucker
With graduation fast approaching, Burnside is still weighing some things. She plans to attend the University of Utah, but would also like to serve a Latter-day Saint mission. She said she still has to decide if that plan fits best between high school and college.
When she does land in Salt Lake City, Burnside plans to enter a pre-med program.
“I really want to be a surgeon,” she said. “I think (being) a neurosurgeon would be really cool.”
She knows full-well the amount of time it will take to reach that lofty goal, but that is something Burnside said she is prepared for. She has always loved school, she explained, as it offers a daily chance to learn something new.
For that reason, Burnside says one of the things she will miss most about Highland is her teachers.
“I’ll actually miss a lot of my teachers,” she said. “I feel like I’ve gotten really close with most of my teachers — they’ve been really good mentors.”
She will also miss the comfort of being the senior, who knows the ropes and what is expected of her. So, even with her excitement regarding the new adventures, there is a certain level of trepidation.
“Going in as a freshman again is going to be kinda scary,” she said with a nervous laugh.
Burnside will also miss cheer — something that, for her, will end at the conclusion of the season.
She will miss her teammates and coaches, and the opportunity to prepare and compete. And being tasked with energizing Highland crowds, especially when the Black and Blue Bowl matchup of Pocatello and Highland football rolls around.
As she described, the weeklong event of the in-city rival Rams-Thunder showdown was something that made coming to school even more exciting. From the assembly early in the week to game night Friday, she said, the energy was something she believes would have rivaled a state football title.
The post Elevating Teens: Senior leads Highland cheerleader to state title appeared first on East Idaho News.
Source: eastidahonews.com
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