The 2023 Orlando Thanksgiving Tour, organized by the Universal Cheerleading Association (UCA), featured UCA All-American middle school cheerleaders from around the country. Homewood Middle School had three students in this year’s parade: AnnahLilly Conklin, Kate Parsons and Zaide Gray Manning. This was the first time that Homewood Middle School was represented in the Thanksgiving Tour.
The parades, one on Nov. 22 and one on Nov. 23, took place at Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida. The cheerleaders from Alabama performed in the Nov. 22 parade, amongst a total of 994 middle schoolers.
Conklin and Parsons are both part of the Homewood Middle cheerleading team, while Manning performs for the dance team. All three girls were given the opportunity to try out for the parade at a UCA cheer camp.
The parade lasted about 40 minutes total, starting at Frontier Land and traveling through the park to end on Main Street, USA. Manning, though not a cheerleader, enjoyed performing in the parade with the other girls.
“As a dancer, [the parade] hit closer to home for me. I really got to branch out and do my own thing,” Manning said. “It was almost unreal to be walking and seeing all those people and the castle. If you looked forward or back it was like a river of girls.”
Parsons recalled some of her favorite parts of cheering in the parade.
“My favorite part was walking backstage; I’d never been backstage before and I just realized how magical Disney was,” Parsons said. “It hit different than at practice for sure. It felt more real, and I was really excited.”
The cheerleaders were required to learn a two-minute routine on their own before coming to the Disney park, which they all rehearsed together on Tuesday, Nov. 21 for the first time. Though the girls said they had fun in the days leading up to the parade, they enjoyed performing in the parade most.
“I loved when we were doing it that we could look down and wave at little kids and girls and see them smiling,” Manning said. “The feeling of that day was different than all the others, but all the days were so fun, and I want to go back.”
The next cheerleading competition for Parsons and Conklin will be Battle Under the Big Top, which will take place in Atlanta, Georgia from Dec. 9-10. To learn more information about this event, check out varsity.com/asc/battle-under-the-big-top.
