WEATHER DOESN'T PREVENT SUNBEAMS FROM SHINING

With just a couple of hours to learn a dance routine before a Saturday night performance at the Show Me Center, Anne Marie Bernhardt carefully followed the movements of the instructor.

Arms up. Arms down. Kick out. Circle round.

But the 11-year-old was having too much fun to feel much pressure during the Sunbeam Clinic 2000, where about 150 young girls, ages 4 to 12, turned out to learn cheers and dance routines from the Southeast Missouri State University Sundancers and cheerleaders.

"I'm not nervous at all," Anne Marie said about the performance she was preparing for. After the three-hour clinic Saturday afternoon, participants were to perform at the Southeast vs. Eastern Kentucky men's basketball game Saturday night.

Of course Anne Marie, the daughter or SEMO band director Barry Bernhardt, is an old pro at this. She began coming to the annual clinic when she was 5 and hasn't missed a year since then.

This was 8-year-old Julie Mothershead's fourth time to come to the clinic. She likes learning the dance routine, but her favorite part of the clinic is getting to know the Sundancers and cheerleaders.

That's the reason many of the girls come, said Suzanne Vaughan, coach of the Sundancers, a dance troupe that performs at half-time of SEMO basketball games.

"These girls like being around the cheerleaders and dancers," said Nancy Greaser, the SEMO cheerleaders coach. "They really look up to them."

And the clinic is as much fun for the Sundancers and cheerleaders as it is for the girls, Vaughan said. It's also a way for the two groups to raise money, she said.

The Sundancers will use money raised through the clinic, as well as sales of posters and videos to pay for a trip to a national dance competiton.

Many of the girls who signed up for the clinic have watched the Sundancers and cheerleaders at basketball games and were eager for the chance to learn from them.

Marilyn Schnare said she's taken her granddaughter Kelsi Siebert to the games since the child was a baby. Now almost 4, Kelsi couldn't wait to come to her first Sunbeam clinic.

So Kelsi, her mother Nicole Siebert and grandmother braved the snow to come to the clinic. Kelsi looked slightly bewildered as she stood in a room filled with 4- to 6-year-olds. But she was giving it her best shot and shout as cheerleaders taught the children cheers.

Wearing a red Sunbeam T-shirt that grazed her knees, 6-year-old Ammanda Elliott shook her hips, twisted her head and sidestepped to the music, following the Sundancer leading her group.

Her mother, Amy Elliott, said the clinic is an extension of her daughter's interest in dance and gymnastics. But it's also an opportunity for her daughter to see the work that goes into the cheers and dance routines done by the college spirit groups.

During a break, Julie Mothershead said she'd love to be a Sundancer when she goes to college. She was in the company of about 149 other girls who will be having the same dream tonight.