The Pini
n
President William McKinley High School
Vol. 90, No. 4
McKINLEY HIGH SCHOOL’S STUDENT NEWSPAPER
February 7, 2012
Cheerleading takes student to London by Brannagan Mukaisu
“Practice till you bleed, don’t chase after success, prepare for it” and “go hard or go home,” said Tenemane Malufau-Howell (12), a cheerleader at McKinley High School. Over the winter break, Malufau-Howell went to London to cheer for and represent Hawaii as well as the United States of America. She was the only one from Hawaii to go. Not only does she cheer for MHS, she is also a cheerleader for the Universal Cheerleaders Association, and the Na Hoku All Stars. Through UCA, Malufau-Howell was chosen to go to London to participate in the New Year’s Day London Parade. The opportunity to go to London arose when she attended a UCA Camp last summer with the entire MHS cheerleading squad. During the camp, they learned many different team-building activities and cheer skills. At the end of the camp, “we had to go through a test,” said Malufau-Howell. She said they were tested on a “jump sequence, dance, also cheer, and whoever got the most points got to go to London.” Malufau-Howell started cheerleading when she was 14 years old and was part of the MHS cheer squad for her Junior Varsity year (9th and 10th grade). In her junior year, she joined the Na Hoku All Stars team, which is an outside competitive cheerleading league, where she competed in the Las Vegas Jamz Nationals. In her senior year, she returned to cheer for MHS and got this chance to go to London. “I missed cheering with friends, rallies, and MHS games,” she said. Malufau-Howell has been cheerleading for a total of four years, but within the last year she has cheered for three different teams, Na Hoku All Stars
in February, MHS Cheer Squad in May, and UCA in December. She said in London she “had an amazing time, just to see all the historic sites, and learn more about the culture or the food.” She left Hawaii with UCA on December 26 and returned from London on January 3, having to fly for 32 hours, a 16 hour flight each way. To pass the time she read, slept, and watched “Burlesque.” In order to prepare for the parade, Malufau-Howell said, “what Varsity does, is it’s this huge company, and the coaches do not have time to teach 300 girls and boys, because there were maybe about 900 cheerleaders all together and on top of that, there’s family and friends all in the hotel, so its like this big “Bring It On” movie in real life, so what Malufau-Howell also got to see the homes of Elton John, the prime they do is they sent out minister, and where Michael Jackson and Lady Gaga stayed. our uniforms, pompoms, a acts going on... all at once,” The parade DVD that we had to learn a month and a was televised as well as shown online at half prior to when we left, we learned it, Varsity.com. and then once we get up there we are exDuring her eight day stay in London, pected to know it, we have one rehearsal she stayed at the Guoman Tower and date and then we go straight into the pavisited the Millennium Dome which has rade.” Varsity and UCA are two compamore than 600 stairs, visited cathedrals, nies that go hand in hand, Varsity makes plays, and went on a cruise. “We went to the uniforms for UCA. the London Eye which is this big ferris At the parade, they cheered for two wheel that takes a good 40 minutes to go hours. In the parade there were not only around just once,” said Malufau-Howell. cheerleaders, but “all different types of continued on page 3 RS 12-0888