Senior Spotlight: Aaliyah Lewis
Aaliyah Lewis is a senior in the Walters Blue Devils Cheerleading team.
She has an offer to cheer at Oklahoma City University (OCU) said she’s going to take it and the team was amazing.
“My journey to even like start kind of cheering started in 8th grade,” Lewis said. “I really wanted to join the cheer team for Walters, and I didn't make it my first couple tries. So, then I was like, you know, ‘I'm going to try tumbling.’ So, I taught myself how to do back handsprings, car wheels, all that great jazz. And then, I went to tumbling practices just to try and get the techniques better. And the coach actually told me that he really wanted me to be on one of the all-star teams. So then, from there, I just started getting my techniques and like skills higher level. And eventually, I was like, ‘I really want to continue cheering. This is one of the things I really love.’ And I just didn't notice it until I started doing it a lot more, participating in stuff like with cheer. And then my mom actually found a like practice combine kind of thing where I could actually go cheer and practice with OCU cheer. And so, I went, and I just loved the team. I loved all the stunts they did. It was a whole bunch of cool stuff. And then ever since then, they were like, ‘We really want you to send videos of you tumbling and all this stuff.’ And that's just kind of where it took off. And then I was just like, ‘I love it here.’ And it was so nice.”
She said she would like to go into premed to learn how to be a dermatologist.
“But I'm really into like working with skin and just learning more about it. I think it's very interesting,” Lewis said. “And I really liked to go into like the medical field as well, because I feel like that's very interesting, too.”
Lewis said she’s either in the cheer or weightlifting gym or hanging out with her friend Samantha. She said in school, she enjoys yearbook. Last year was her first year to participate in powerlifting, but couldn’t practice the first season.
“Families of other students who also wanted to kind of participate started to speak up. And eventually, we were able to get a coach to coach female powerlifting,” Lewis said. “And she helped us like come that far. And she helped us build a team and begin doing something for Walters High School with female powerlifting.”
She made it state, and she said not a lot of people who participate in their first year of powerlifting can say they went to state. Lewis left for New York on November 19 for to cheer in the Macy’s Day Parade. She said she went to a cheer camp, Jeff and Craig, to participate in All American, where they teach routines for athletes to memorize.
“I was the only Walters High School cheerleader to participate in that,” Lewis said. “I was able to win All-Star. And they announced that ‘If you are able to go and win it, then you will be able to go to the Macy's Day Parade.’ This was actually my second time winning All-Star. But the first year with COVID, I guess some things happened, and I was not able to go. But this year, we're making it happen.”
She said she’s excited to participate in the parade.
“At first, I was like, ‘Oh, cool, whatever.’ But, like, now that it's coming closer to time, I think like the nerves, the stress, everything is actually starting to like become real,” Lewis said. “And it's just crazy to me that I'm actually going to, like, even just going to New York. I like that's something I was like, ‘Oh, I want to get a hot dog from New York.’ It's a dream or something. I don't know. And now it's like, ‘Oh, I can actually get a hot dog from New York.’”
She said mentors include her mother.
“My mother is actually a really big one for me. Growing up, she was a single mother of two, juggling work, college, all this. And she's just always been able to power through stuff. And she's also very independent,” Lewis said. “No matter what she says, she is. She believes she can do anything get anything done. And I just really look up to that because she's just such a strong, hard worker. And she really does work for what she believes. And she's just someone that I believe a lot of people should look up to.”
She said she wished she was more involved in her Comanche side.
“I wish that I would have gotten to maybe even like dancing, all that great stuff that they do. I do attend some powwows that we have local,” Lewis said. “But, like, I just growing up, I think I wasn't really in it as much because I think it came from my dad's side. And me and my dad are not that close. So, I didn't really get to, like, do any of the cool experience stuff with like Comanche, like all the cool stuff that they do. And, like I wish I would have. It's something that, like, I look back, and ‘I'm like, dang, I really wish I could have got more involved with that side of my family.’ And it's a little sad because it's such a cool culture, too.”
