Pompoms and poetry
Former original Dallas Cowboys cheerleader Anna Marie Lee '74 now celebrates America.
by Jessie Milligan
Anna Marie Lee '74 (top row right) is a 14th-generation American and writes patriotic poetry. Below, Lee poses with her DAR awards and dons Cowboy blue and white.
Anna Marie Carpenter Lee ’74 cheered for America’s team and now she cheers for America.
The former Dallas Cowboys cheerleader recently won a national patriotic writing contest sponsored by the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR).
In 1972, Anna Marie was selected as one of the seven original Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders while she was a student at TCU earning a degree in clothing merchandising.
That affiliation brought her distinction through the years, particularly in 2001 when Sports Illustrated put her and several other of the original cheerleaders on its cover with the headline: “Where Are They Now?”
That SI cover created a wave of spinoff attention for the original Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders, including features on television’s Entertainment Tonight, Inside Edition and ESPN.
“We were negotiating to go on the Oprah Winfrey show but 9/11 happened and changed all that,” says Ann Marie from her home in Tyler.
She also was interviewed for Texas Stadium : America's Home Field, Reliving the Legends and the Legendary Moments by Schieffer School of Journalism faculty member Mac Engel '98 (MLA) and football great Roger Staubach.
Ann Marie is a 14th-generation American and an eighth-generation Texan. She is the Regent of the Mary Tyler Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, a state officer of the Colonial Dames XVII Century, a member of the Society of the Descendants of Washington’s Army at Valley Forge, The Daughters of the Republic of Texas and the Society of the Descendants of Colonial Clergy.
Recently, Ann Marie wrote a patriotic poem on American heritage and won not just a national DAR poetry writing contest but was advanced to and won the DAR’s National Evelyn Cole Peters Award for the best literature or drama submitted.
She and husband Stephen Lee run LPH Productions, a marketing and production company Tyler. One of her two sons, Britton, is a student at TCU.
