Spirit to spare at middle school

It’s an event so loud the staff at Cheney Middle School offers visitors ear plugs.

For the 14th year in a row, the sixth-grade class competed in the bowling tournament – more than 300 students, dressed in their team colors and in crazy costumes, yelling and jumping and clapping until they are exhausted.

Fitness teacher Selinda Riggs calls the tournament the Rubber Chicken Game of sixth-grade bowling. Twelve teams compete against each other for bragging rights in bowling and the two spirit teams, the Pinheads and the Strikers, compete for who has the most spirit.

“It’s fun to see and fun to watch,” Riggs said.

Hosted by Riggs and Charles Lemcke, another fitness teacher, the sixth-graders started bowling about a month ago using bowling balls and pins specially made for gymnasiums. The students competed against each other and were soon eliminated down into 12 teams, one from each fitness class.

Riggs said that the event promotes a lifelong activity for the students and they have a great time. In fact, all of the students were into it – the Pinheads, dressed in white, and the Strikers, dressed in red, not only wore their colors, but came up with creative ways to wear them. One boy even taped a fake red Mohawk made of construction paper to his crew cut. They wore face paint, girls twisted their hair into braids that stood out at all ends. Some students wore different shoes on each foot and one boy was dressed as Elvis.

The event is choreographed by the staff at the school with lighting and loud music. The competing students bowled five frames, while the students on the sidelines cheered. Often, a match of “We’ve got spirit, yes we do,” broke out among the Strikers and the Pinheads. Each team kept track of their scores while the scoreboard in the gym reflected the spirit points. The spirit competition was close throughout the event.

After the first five frames it was halftime, when Fred Flintstone – co-Principal Mike Stark dressed as the twinkle-toed bowler – drove into the gym on a moped while “Bad to the Bone” played on the sound system and a fog machine pumped.

Flintstone challenged students from the stands to a bowl-off while the students on the sidelines were still cheering and jumping up and down in the stands.

After the bowl-off, the lights in the gym were turned down while the Pinheads and Strikers each got a chance to show just how loud they could be.

During the second half, while the teams bowled, the kids in the stands danced the Macarena, YMCA or other choreographed dances. At the end of the second five frames, the students were starting to look tired – they had been jumping and cheering for about an hour and a half, but they were all excited to hear which team won – Marty Sexton’s sixth period class on even days.

There is even a human bowling skit at the end of the match – students were dressed as pins while the school mascot, Nester the Nighthawk bowled them over with a large rubber ball.

But the spirit competition was still to come and the score was close – 170 points for the Pinheads and 172 for the Strikers.

Since it was so close, the students had a dance-off to determine the winner. The two spirit teams met in the center of the gym and danced to “Cotton-Eyed Joe.”

“They’re exhausted,” Riggs said of the students. In fact, she said that the last few classes of the day, after the tournament, are completely silent, since the students have worn themselves out from cheering.

The judges declared the Strikers the winners of the dance off. They received a trophy with bowling shoes glued to it and bragging rights forever, since next year will be a new set of sixth-graders competing in the tournament.