KELLOGG — If you attended Kellogg High School’s football game last Friday night, you may have noticed something that had been missing from some of the local sport events this fall.

Thats right, KHS once again has a cheerleading squad.

The fate of the squad was up in the air until just a few weeks ago when former coach Lori Sawyer and a collection of former cheerleaders and coaches stepped up to make sure that the Wildcat spirit did not fade into obscurity.

Donning retro uniforms and with only nine days of practice for the season, the squad kept the Kellogg crowd in good spirits despite a losing effort from the guys on the gridiron.

“It was so much fun to watch them at the game last week,” Sawyer said. “I was laying in bed after the game and I was still excited, so I sent all the girls on the team a message about how excited I was for them.”

As mentioned, Sawyer isn’t alone in her quest to keep pep in KHS, she is joined by her daughter (also a former coach) Sarah Sawyer, as well as former cheerleaders Holly Sullivan and Mary Bishop — who are all going to be joining Sawyer as she undertakes the challenge of coaching the KHS cheerleading team.

“We are so busy this time of the year and we only get busier as we move into winter,” Sawyer said. “We have girls who are not only cheerleaders, but are also playing other sports right now. I’m so thankful that I have these other ladies who are helping me with managing all of this right now.”

The cheerleading program is one of many at KHS that had trouble finding anyone willing to take ownership of it, and some of that boils down to funding issues.

“We don’t have a lot of money, especially for things like uniforms,” Sawyer said. “We have four girls who had uniforms from last year, but then everyone else needed a uniform. So we broke out some of our older uniforms and the girls loved it.”

The retro look went over like gangbusters at the game last week, as many in attendance recognized the uniforms from bygone cheer squads. Still though, the girls are in need of matching uniforms which can run anywhere from $150 to $200.

Sawyer and many of her cheer moms are organizing several fundraisers, including an auction to help raise the funds to allow the cheerleaders to do all of things they want to do.

Nothing is set in stone at this point, but Sawyer is planning for something in late November.

“We don’t want to try to do anything once basketball season really gets going,” Sawyer said. “It takes a lot of coordination to get things set up, so once we do that, we will let everyone know when our fundraiser will be.”

For more information, or to donate to the Kellogg High School cheerleaders contact Lori Sawyer at 208-660-8484.