ANDERSON — When the Anderson High School boys basketball team gathers on Nov. 28 to play its home opener, senior Sophie Guthrie also will be preparing to perform.
Guthrie will portray this year’s Indian maiden, the female counterpart to the AHS Indians’ mascot. The two will perform the school’s traditional tribal dance to rev up the crowd.
“It’s a huge honor because I’m the only girl in my grade that can say that I’ve done that,” Guthrie said. “It’s an honor because it means so much to the school and across Indiana there’s really nothing like it.”
Guthrie, 17, tried out to be the maiden at the end of both her sophomore and junior years and beat out four other girls. Try-outs involve three practices to learn dances and an individual performance in front of judges.
Guthrie and the Indian mascot, senior Chris Capshaw, perform the dance during basketball games only but were required to attend football games in costume as well.
Nov. 28 will be the first time they perform in the Wigwam. The two performed the dance during a recent pep session.
“Right before (the dance), the band plays some beats,” Guthrie said. “We’re both standing in opposite corners of the court. Right when they start the music, it’s like your heart starts racing. Once we went out there and I started, I was definitely nervous. It was excited that we were part of that tradition.”
Carol Poore Miller, who served as the Indian maiden for the class of 1976, said she was always excited to perform the dance.
“That was one of the coolest things ever,” she said. “When I was a little kid watching, I was just fascinated with that. It was very unique and only one person got to do it.”
Anderson High School changed the dance since Miller was maiden, but Guthrie will go back to performing the original.
“The people who have been coming since they were a child remember the dance,” she said.
Contact Aleasha Sandley: 640-4805, aleasha.sandley@heraldbulletin.com.
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