As a Columbus North High School cheerleader, senior Lydia Feltner said her job is to generate school spirit and get people on their feet at football games.
But with a decades-old Bull Dog mascot costume falling apart and a run-through tunnel that required the cheerleaders to hold it down as the football players sprinted out on to their home turf, Feltner said it was becoming more difficult to raise spirit.
For her senior project, a requirement for all Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp. seniors before graduating, Feltner decided to raise money for a new Bull Dog mascot costume.
When she first started fundraising, she sat down with local business owner Tony London to determine a quote for a new costume and a large inflatable Bull Dog helmet tunnel that the team could run through at home games.
“She immediately nixed the helmet,” said Lynley Roberts, Feltner’s mother. “It was going to be way too much and I said, ‘That’s too much on a child to raise that kind of money.'”
But after hosting a successful Red, White and Big Blue 5K race on July 4 with more than 60 participants and garnering donations and support from area businesses and community members with ties to the Columbus North football team, Feltner had raised more than $4,000 — more than enough to purchase both the $800 mascot costume and the inflatable helmet, which totaled $3,600.
For more on this story, see Saturday’s Republic.
