[Prev][Next][Index]

[bostic@okeeffe.Berkeley.EDU (Keith Bostic): Passing]

------- Forwarded Message

Date:    Mon, 24 Sep 90 13:25:49 -0700 
From:    bostic@okeeffe.Berkeley.EDU (Keith Bostic)
To:      /dev/null@okeeffe.Berkeley.EDU
Subject: Passing

   COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.  (UPI)  -- Some of the students at Coronado High
School thought the new cheerleader looked a little large.

   Members of the football  team joked they would never go  out with a girl
who could lift more weight than they could.

   No wonder, because the high school cheerleader was a 26-year-old man.

   For  nearly two  weeks,   Charles James  Daugherty  convinced the  1,500
students and teachers  at Coronado that he was an  11th-grade coed,  police
said Thursday.

   Daughtery,  using  the name Cheyen Weatherly,   showed up at  the school
Sept. 6 purporting to be a transfer student from Greece and offering a high
school transcript.

   "Cheyen" was  a good student and  tried out for the  cheerleading squad,
although "she" apparently  never dressed with the  other girl cheerleaders,
said police Sgt. Ollie Baltus.

   But,  at  5-foot-8 and 160 pounds,   some people were suspicious  of the
newcomer.

   "Everyone just looked at  her like she was so big  and everything," said
Gina, a student at the school.  "I remember one time she (Cheyen) wanted to
go out with  some of the guys on  the football team,  but  they said they'd
never go out with someone who could bench (press) as much as they could."

   School officials did  some checking on the transcript  and discovered it
was a  phony.  Police  arrested Daugherty  Tuesday on  suspicion of  felony
impersonation and third-degree forgery.

   Daugherty has had experience as a cheerleader, Baltus said.  Posing as a
woman he  served with  the all-female  cheerleading squad  of the  Colorado
Springs Spirit, a now-defunct minor league football team.

   "We did our cheerleading tryouts last year and she (Daugherty)  made the
squad," said Betsy Acree,  leader of the  Spirit squad.  "She was great.  I
have nothing bad to say about the girl, except she wasn't a girl."

   Acree said she discovered midway through the season that Daugherty was a
man and dismissed him.

   "One of  the cutest  stories was that  one of the  guys involved  on the
football team,  a  mister macho,  mister chauvinistic pig,   made a comment
about what great legs she had," Acree said.

------- End of Forwarded Message