Two Sikeston cheerleaders make University of Missouri Cheer Team for 2023-24

SIKESTON, Mo. (KFVS) - Current Sikeston seniors Blair Durham and Justis Taylor are officially on the University of Missouri Cheer Team for 2023-24. They will both be freshman beginning in the fall.

Durham has cheered for 11 years.

“It’s a dream come true,” said Durham. “I love all my coaches and they’ve prepared me for everything I’ve accomplished so far.”

Meanwhile, Taylor only started the sport last year, never even having the chance to compete with Sikeston. It was Durham that initially encouraged him to try it.

“I just started to develop a love for (cheerleading), and I started doing it in my free time,” Taylor said. “Then I just knew I had to do it in college.”

It was the “family-oriented” approach to the Tigers’ team that drew Taylor’s interest.

“I’ve never been a part of sports or an organization that had that unity (that cheer teams do),” said Taylor. “Mizzou had that tight-knit (feeling).”

To earn their spots on the team at Missouri Durham and Taylor had to submit recruitment videos, then perform at in-person tryouts, which were held last week.

“It was nice at tryouts to have somebody that I knew that I could talk to,” said Durham. “I knew that (Taylor) would be there to help me and give me the honest truth.”

Then both of them heard their names called when the roster was announced.

“I’ve known I wanted to do cheer at Mizzou for like a year now,” said Taylor. “For me to actually have made the team was unreal.”

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