Three Southmoreland seniors who have been cheering for many years are finally getting to see their hard work pay off. Keera Frye has been cheering since she was in seventh grade, Haley Rollinson since sixth grade, and Kaitlyn Walch since she was in third grade. As a result of their hard work, the three girls will perform at Disney World in November.

“Cheerleading has provided me with a lot of opportunities over the years,” said Frye. “I have met some of my closest friends through cheerleading, learned how to work well with others, been able to compete at Idlewild, and now I have the opportunity to cheer in Disney.”

When the Universal Cheerleaders Association (UCA) camp is held for any cheerleading program, members of the squad are given the opportunity to try out to be a UCA All-American cheerleader at the end of the camp. Depending upon grade and squad, the members who are selected to be All-Americans have the chance to attend one of three events. Freshman cheerleaders have the opportunity to perform in a parade in Philadelphia for Thanksgiving, varsity squad members can travel to London to be in a New Year’s parade, and varsity captains and co-captains who are seniors can be selected to take part in the Varsity Spirit Spectacular. This year, the camp instructors were told to only offer the Varsity Spirit Spectacular trip to two senior cheerleaders at each camp they hosted.

At Southmoreland, they chose three.

UCA hosted a camp for the Southmoreland varsity, junior varsity, and middle school cheerleading squads in June. When the instructors were with the Southmoreland High School cheerleaders, they found it too complicated to pick just two, so they selected three seniors to travel to Disney World Nov. 30-Dec. 5 for the Varsity Spirit Spectacular as All- American cheerleaders. Keera Frye, Haley Rollinson, and Kaitlyn Walch were the three cheerleaders from Southmoreland to be presented with this opportunity.

“I am very excited to be able to go to Disney as an all-American cheerleader,” said Frye. “I’m even more excited to have my best friend, Kait, there with me on my first trip to Disney.”

Frye and Walch are ecstatic to share this opportunity together as best friends and have their fellow senior cheerleader Rollinson with them for the experience. All three girls agree that this experience has already brought them even closer together.

“I am really excited to stay and explore the parks with Keera, Kait and my mom,” said Rollinson. “It’s going to be a ton of fun, and I wouldn’t want to do it with anyone else.”

After many rehearsals, the girls will be rewarded with three-day park hopping passes that they are thrilled about.

“All American includes a three-day pass in the package for all of us and we are all really excited about that,” said Walch.

Before leaving for Disney, all of the girls are sent a video of the dance and they are to learn the entire routine. If they learn all of the parts of the dance, they have the opportunity to be in the front row for the parade.

“It makes me really happy that I can be a part of the parade in Disney, because in previous years when we have made it, it has been too expensive,” said Frye. “With Disney, I get to go and be a part of this dance with a big group of other cheerleaders.”

The girls were able to fund their trip to Disney by doing a few different fundraisers. The girls did sold tickets for a few months, had a car wash, sold pepperoni rolls, and there were people that donated money.