Cheerleaders' Decoupage Berry Can Purse

It’s a Friday night in October 1973.  The sky is dark, and a cool breeze blows through the stands and the student section at David Cecil Memorial Stadium.   The Highlands varsity football team is competing against their biggest rival, Covington Catholic. The cheerleaders are on the sideline, rooting for the team that they’ve devoted so much time and effort supporting. They’re wearing their gloves and have their clackers, along with the handmade, trendy decoupage purses the cheerleaders made together. 

The decoupage purses, which were made from berry cans, were created in the 1972-1973 school year, but 1973-74, a few of the cheerleaders still used their purses from the previous year. The idea came together through a mom of a cheerleader who thought it would be a fun activity for the team to create together. The purse was a decorative fashion piece cheerleaders brought with them to football games and basketball games. Its blue color showed Highlands spirit and it was customized to the owner, usually with their name. 

“It was painted and decoupaged. You would paint it royal blue and you would cut out letters out of a magazine,” class of ‘74 cheerleader Jane Graves Petracco said. “We cut royal blue felt out, and lined the whole inside with it… We made them in one of the Cheerleaders' houses in her basement.” The night before the big game, the cheerleading squad would meet up and work to make the football team feel special on Thursday night. 

“That was our night to get together, we did everything,” artifact donor Ellen Graves Turner added. “We would start at 5:00 or 6:00 p.m.” 

The cheerleaders used these purses to hold their belongings when they went to football and basketball games.  

 "We cheered for just one football game per week… in the fall, up until the first week of December, which was the big state championship… Basketball [games] were 2 days a week, Tuesday and Friday,” Petracco recalled. 

“We continued to use them (the purses) throughout both basketball and football seasons.” 

The things stored in these purses included hand-made clackers that made loud noises and white gloves, which were a staple for all Highlands cheerleaders.

“We had what we called clackers, and of course, we made them, nobody ordered them off of Amazon (no such thing in the 1970s)…” Turner remarked. “We used little tiny pieces of wood that we cut and sanded, we painted them, and stapled white elastic to them and that's how we made sound.”