CANOGA PARK : Cheerleaders Win State Championship

By HENRY CHU

March 10, 1992 12 AM PT

A Canoga Park High School cheerleading team has won a state championship for the second consecutive year.

The co-ed squad, going toe to toe against 25 other teams from around California, won the crown during the final round of competition in the 13th annual California State High School Cheerleading Championships, held Saturday at Magic Mountain.

“I knew they could do it and I knew our routine was strong enough to do it,” said coach Carolyn Purkey, a physical education teacher. “But we had a lot of competition.”

Canoga Park defeated runner-up Los Alamitos High School from Orange County, which also came in second last year. San Marcos High School from San Diego County came in third this year.

The winning team received $1,000 and a four-foot trophy. The team will take part in a national competition March 27 to 29 in Irvine, Purkey said.

“It keeps getting tougher and tougher,” she said.

High School Sports

Henry Chu

Henry Chu first joined the Los Angeles Times in 1990 and worked primarily out of the San Fernando Valley office before moving to the foreign staff in 1998. He served as bureau chief in Beijing from 1998 to 2003, Rio de Janeiro from 2004 to 2005, New Delhi from 2006 to 2008 and London from 2009 to 2014. He was a 2014-15 fellow at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard. From 2016-19 he was international editor at Variety magazine. A graduate of Harvard University, Chu returned to The Times in March 2020 as deputy news editor based in London. He left in 2024.

CANOGA PARK : Cheerleaders Win State Championship

More From the Los Angeles Times