Unsportsman-like conduct?
Mother of cheerleader may face charges in altercation

By Bill Donovan
Staff Writer

GALLUP — The mother of a Thoreau High School cheerleader may be facing criminal prosecution for going after another cheerleader at a school meeting on Monday.

Officials at the school on Wednesday were downplaying the incident, saying there wasn't a story there, but according to one report, law enforcement officers who were called to the school said charges may be filed against the mother.

The incident on Monday stems from another incident that occurred on Friday during a practice when one of the cheerleaders, Lorena Chavez, 17, fell from the top of a pyramid created by the cheerleaders and suffered a concussion.

She and her mother, Francis Chavez, attended a meeting called by the cheerleading squad to determine whether to go to the state competition, but a decision was made that without Chavez, the team should drop out of the competition and maybe should just go to the state competition as spectators.

Sherrie Tronosco, the mother of 14-year-old Chelsea Tronosco, said that she was told that during the meeting Lorena Chavez had expressed a reluctance to be the one at the top of the pyramid again and Tronosco said her daughter said something to the affect that "if you are scared to go back on top, you shouldn't."

Tronosco said her daughter wasn't part of the pyramid but the remark apparently upset Lorena Chavez, who went after Tronosco's daughter. Before that could happen, the cheerleading coach got between the two. It was at this time, however, that Chavez's mother, Francis Chavez, allegedly got in the act and went after Tronosco's daughter.

Francis Chavez later told police that she wasn't going after Chelsea Tronosco, but was just trying to stop the fight; however, Sherrie Tronosco said that if this were true, a mother's first instincts would be to put her arms around their daughter to stop the fight and not go toward the other person.

Sherrie Tronosco said her daughter was hit during the scuffle, but she didn't really get hurt. Her daughter was more upset, she said, that someone's mother would try to get involved in a fight.

"It's one thing when you get a child-to-child fight, but it's another when an adult gets involved," she said.

Sherrie Tronosco, who is the school's softball coach, said there is no reason why a parent or an adult should take this kind of action.

Monique Siedschlag, who is principal of the high school, said she didn't feel that the incident was that serious and was not out of the norm.

Robert Gintowt, the district's athletic director, who was unaware of any incident until it was brought to his attention by a reporter, said it's unusual for something like this to occur with cheerleaders.

"This may go on in Texas, but not New Mexico," he said.