For the past three years Walker cheered as Bucky the Bronco. This year she watched her first game without looking through Bucky’s mouth.
“I am not as hot and I can actually watch the game with clear vision,” Walker said. “You can’t see anything in the mascot and you have no peripheral vision.”
This year freshman Reagan Moody felt the heat of the mascot. Walker participated as the only mascot since the school opened except her freshman year she shared the duty with Terra Baugh. This year Moody became Legacy’s second mascot.
“I have always really wanted to be a cheerleader and my sister is a cheerleader,” Moody said. “I knew I wanted to be out on the field and I thought mascot would be great and you can just act like a fool.”
Last year at the cheer meeting, Walker had intentions of being the mascot her senior year, but that changed when the cheer camp dates conflicted with another camp. Walker had already signed up and paid $200 to go to Super Summer. If Walker wanted to be mascot she had to attend cheer camp.
“It took me a long time to make a final decision because it is my senior year, and I didn’t want to give up something I have done since I was a freshman. I definitely had to pray about it,” Walker said.
Super Summer, a Christian leadership camp, allows teens to grow closer to God and teaches them how to better share Christ with others. Walker has attended since seventh grade and has made relationships with other campers that she didn’t want to give up for cheer camp.
“I’ve made relationships with people that have stuck and every year I meet more people and they become my best friends. It is hard to find really good friends that share those same beliefs. It is really important to me to maintain those relationships and it would have been really hard to miss out,” Walker said.
Instead Walker missed out on cheer camp and allowed the mascot position to open.
“I thought it was great to have an open mascot. I heard all my older friends at Legacy say you know we have this awesome mascot and I heard she wasn’t trying out this year and I thought it would be really cool,” Moody said. “I just heard she wasn’t trying out so I tried out.”
Walker’s mascot legacy has made things difficult for Moody.
“It’s kind of intimidating because all the girls are like hey why don’t you do this cause the old mascot April did a lot of different stuff than I did,” Moody said. “Which was kind of intimidating because it was the first pep rally I ever had just the other day but I think I have the hang of things now.”
Not wearing the mascot costume gives Walker the opportunity to actually see the pep rallies and football games, but Walker still wanted to be cheering on the field, so she tried out for Bronco Brigade.
“I really enjoy Bronco Brigade and I am glad I made the decision to give up mascot,” Walker said. “Super Summer was a life changing week. Sometimes I miss Mascot but then I don’t because I know I made the right decision and God’s will will always prevail.”