Three 2024 Mount Gilead graduates will be members of the stunt and/or cheerleading teams this fall and winter at their colleges.

Hailey Fuller will participate in both stunt and cheerleading at Walsh University, while majoring in early childhood education.

“When I went for a visit, it just felt super home-like and kind of like Mount Gilead,” she said. “The college is big enough to where it feel like college, but small enough to also feel like home.”

Those factors made her decision an easy one.

“I feel it was a pretty quick process for me,” she said. “Just having the support of everybody helped make the decision easier.”

It probably didn’t hurt that she already had a connection to the college who also got her started in stunt.

“My dance coach that I currently have is the head coach at Walsh, so she kind of introduced it (stunt) to me and it was something that was real interesting, so I decided I wanted to do it.”

Fuller is looking forward to many aspects of the collegiate experience.

“I would say I’m looking forward to being more independent and all the new experiences that both the athletic and academic is going to bring me,” she said.

However, she will miss many of the experiences she had at Mount Gilead.

“All the football and basketball games,” she said. “The bus rides to the away games, all the pep rallies and the student events here that have been super fun for me.”

One of her fellow cheerleaders at Mount Gilead will also be involved with stunt and cheerleading at Walsh. Lupita Martinez will be majoring in education at the Canton-area college.

“I was interested in Walsh because it was really welcoming as soon as I walked in,” she said. “Everything was really neat and I really liked the atmosphere, as well as pertaining to my Catholic faith as well. It was a pretty easy decision.”

Martinez added that being able to attend college with Fuller also was a positive she feels will add to her enjoyment of college life.

“I’m looking forward to going with my best friend,” she said. “She’s also going in for the same major and same athletics and everything. I’m excited for all the dorm stuff and the experience itself and going to games at the collegiate level. I feel it will be different, but really fun.”

After graduating, she also has hopes of returning to Mount Gilead to use her degree.

“I’m really going to miss it for sure, but I think that I’ll be okay because I’ll always be able to come home and, hopefully, I can come back and teach here.”

Mikenzee Clapper will be on the stunt team at Ashland University, where she intends to major in nursing.

“I toured a lot of campuses and when I toured Ashland, it was just the one,” she said. “It felt like home there. The faculty there was just really welcoming and I felt like I belonged there.”

Clapper got into stunt competition at her dance studio.

“I was part of a competitive cheer team at my dance studio, The Dance Factory in Caledonia, and it just started from there,” she said.

Clapper is looking forward to being part of the Ashland University community.

“I’m really looking forward to school and majoring in nursing and being part of the team,” she said. “I want to be a part of that environment and see how it goes.”

In going to Ashland, she’ll have a lot of good memories of cheering for the Indians.

“I’m definitely going to take away the four years that I got to cheer here and I’m going to miss my teammates a lot.”

Rob Hamilton can be reached at 419-946-3010, ext. 1807. Connect with him on Twitter at @SportsMCS