Page 64 - Senior Link Magazine Spring 2026 - Online Magazine

Exceptional

SENIORS

MY UN-MENTOR

Mary Ann Manley

& Uniformed, Uninformed Me

by Heather Halsey Price
only snaps we sent were part of expertly rolled my eyes as high
a cheer performed by our cheer as that heaven we were all going
squad.’ (Come for the hard truths, to because I. did. not. need. a.
stay for the cringe.) Just another mentor. Have you ever met a teen
way I keep proving to them that who does? Correction: have you
I’m still as cool as I was in the last ever met a teen who thinks they
century. do?

Speaking of cool, I have not (yet) My then-truth was that I didn’t
subjected my girls to a life lesson need a mentor because I knew
on generational snaps. I was, everything. Duh. Did I know
however, on a six-girl cheer team Mary Ann was the first female
way back when. The brave adult in PhD in Psychology at Texas Tech
charge of herding us and our 80’s University, and she had to get
bangs was Mary Ann Manley, my Texas courts to agree she had
un-mentor. been denied entrance into the
program on the basis of sex? Did
Truth is a curious thing, especially I know Mary Ann’s own mother
when viewed under the spotlight tried to kill her before she was
of that even more curious thing: even born? That with little more
time. Time moves forward, than the clothes on their backs,
poiler alert: despite the fact backward; it even stands still, and Mary Ann escaped an unsafe
that I recently met up with all at the same, well, time. The environment to ensure the safety
Smy lifelong bestie, and we complex truth of a memory, of her two small children? Or that
talked non-stop, seal-laughing revealed over time, is a multi- she was one of the first counselors
and carb-conquering our way faceted prism rather than a of her generation to work with
through several of Colorado’s single-pane viewing window. If victims of the unspeakably-taboo
finest shopping malls, I am not a you’d asked back-then-me who topic of sexual abuse?
teenager. Not even close. I am old my mentor was, I’d have given
enough to say things like ‘back in the faux-pious, people-pleasing I knew Mary Ann was the mother
my day,’ whenever I am definitely, answer you wanted to hear as of my beautiful friend and fellow
totally not trying to downplay reassurance that not all of Today’s cheerleader, Crystal. I also knew
major fangirling over my kids Teens were as wayward as the Mary Ann made cheerleading
during their all-too-brief visits fearmongering ABC After School fun. It’s a sport (yes, it is, and that’s
home from college. ‘Back in my Specials implied. Inwardly, I’d a Herkie hill I will fight you on)
day,’ I might say to my girls, ‘the have gagged me with a fork and where success is defined by rapid,

64 Lubbock Senior Link