RUNNING IN A WIN: Campers run back their bouncy ball to pass it on to their teammate in hopes of winning the relay.

THOMASVILLE- For many little girls, varsity cheerleaders are their most respected and admired role models. These girls will buy their school’s uniform so they can match the girls shouting from the sidelines, and look forward to gamedays, when the squad comes to visit their classrooms.

A major rite of passage for these girls is attending a cheer camp, in which older cheerleaders and varsity cheer coaches mold them into mini pep squads. This camp has been facilitated by Brookwood for decades and has become a multi-generational tradition.

Each year, local girls grades junior kindergarten through fifth from Brookwood School and neighboring elementary schools have the opportunity to partake in the school’s cheer camp. This year’s camp ran from Monday through Thursday in the Joe and Mary Beverly Athletic Center, and was full of smiling faces.

The camp is being facilitated by Brookwood’s varsity cheer coach, Katie Thompson. It’s Thompson’s second year helping with the camp.

“This camp is probably one of my favorite things I get to do as a coach,” Thompson said. “It’s so fun just seeing my girls interact with all the younger girls from the community.”

“It’s fun because they have girls to look up to and are just seeing girls with positive attitudes,” Thompson explained. “They get to talk to them about how they got to be a cheerleader and what their favorite parts of being a cheerleader are.”

Many girls who participate in the program grow up to be varsity cheerleaders. Thompson herself was a cheerleader at TCCHS, and many of the Brookwood varsity cheerleaders volunteering at the camp attended it in lower school.

“I think it just makes these little girls want to be cheerleaders when they grow up and I love that,” Thompson remarked.

Wednesday, the campers had a “cheer olympics” day, during which they were dressed in neon accessories and split into three teams: pink, red and orange. The varsity girls cheered the campers on as they worked together in teams to complete various races and competitions.

They went down the line of their color group and bounced on bouncy balls with handles, racing across the basketball court to see which team could get all their girls back to the start line the quickest.

Then, they raced against each other and the clock to see which team could pass a hula hoop over each of their heads and pass it over the whole line, all while challenged with holding hands.

One of the final games of the morning was tug-of-war, which required dozens of girls to work together to roll out the foam mat and set up the rope.

Each color team played each other, tournament-style.

The campers used their “big girl muscles,” as instructed by rising senior cheerleaders Emily Grace Tuten and Abigail Squires. They pulled as hard as they could, but the neon-clad cheerleaders came tumbling to the floor after their 30-second standoffs.

By the time they were excused for a playground break, the pink team was winning the olympics, so far.

Some girls had vibrant paint on their face, while others had bandanas, cowboy hats and tutus. A couple campers even wore their Brookwood cheer uniforms and ribbons.

Wednesday, each color group created a unique, impromptu dance and perfected it for Thursday’s final ceremony, which parents and family attended to see all the dances and cheers their mini cheerleader learned. The dances could include stunts and moves they learned over the past week.