Give her a cheer!

At age 99, this CLHS cheerleader has still got pep

by Marianne Morf

At age 99, Jean Knutson has still got plenty of pep.  And if she could, she says she’d love to be back running down the hallway at Clear Lake High School this week.

“We would run down the hallway to the auditorium, telling everyone to get up and cheer!  We’d ask, ‘are we going to beat the visitors tonight?  Of course, we are!  We’re Clear Lake, the best by far!’”

Without missing a beat, her chant is quickly followed by the familiar school song.

“Can you hear those Lions roar?  Can you hear those Lions roar?” she asks with a smile.  “You can hear them roaring everywhere, as they score and score some more.”

Memories of high school days were sparked recently by a scrapbook which Jean shared with her friend, Mary Curtis.  Inside are programs from school plays, newspaper clippings and photos from Jean’s past.

“Those were very, very happy days,” she said, looking at her class photo.  She was one of the 60 graduates in the CLHS Class of 1930.  She had a strong interest in speech and drama, “basically anything that would get me in front of people.” 

Her biggest audience was the legions of Lions fans who would follow the football team.  Jean was their cheerleader-- and for a while, their only cheerleader.  “Once, when I was cheerleading these two kids turned up behind me and they were really good.  So we added them.”  Jean, whose maiden name is Matthews, along with Bob Murphy and Johnny Brooks, led the cheers for the Lions all four of her high school years.

“I didn’t know anything about doing a cartwheel, but I could cheer,” she says proudly.  She could surely drum up school spirit, which she demonstrated for members of - Read More Via e-Edition