“Let’s get a little bit Rowdy ‘R-O-W-D-Y’!” This familiar chant has a prominent place in all students’ minds and hearts here at R.J. Reynolds High School. Whether it be packed in the stands at Deaton Thompson stadium, Bryson Gym, or Bolton Elementary, you can often times identify them wearing t-shirts adorned with the Rowdies insignia- watching their fellow students compete in their respective sports. These students all share something in common, they belong to one group: The Rowdies.

Hayes Wauford, a 2001 graduate of RJR, co-founded the Rowdies with his fellow classmate Will Robinson in the fall of 1999. During his time at RJR, the demons experienced great athletic success.

“We saw how good our sports teams were but more importantly, how hard the athletes were working,” Wauford said. “There just weren’t students going to the games at that point. I mean, the home football games got a decent crowd, and the home basketball games got a decent crowd, but nobody would ever travel to the away games.”

So Wauford and his friends decided to do something about this to solve the stigma.

“We wanted to [do] something to really rally support for the sports teams,” Wauford said. “So we had the idea of creating a formal cheering section that encouraged people to go to the away games as well.”

With the help of the late Principal Stan Elrod, and other coaches at RJR, the group began to formalize by printing t-shirts based on the Ruff Ryders record label “double-R” logo and making announcements via Pep Rallies and the schools intercom. Wauford’s classmate Kevin Cain coined the name “Reynolds Rowdies.”

“We would say, ‘let’s get rowdy,” Wauford said. “Since it made sense with the sound of ‘Reynolds,’ we went with it.”

The Rowdies began planning to travel across the state for certain playoff games; the Varsity Men’s basketball team, in particular, won two of its three total state championships in the 2000 and 2001 season during Wauford’s junior and senior years.

“We traveled down to watch all those playoff games and then the final championship game,” Wauford said. “They were held at the Dean Dome on [UNC] Chapel Hills campus. So those were pretty spectacular. I mean, there were a lot [of] future Division One players on both teams, so that was really fun.”

Since the beginning, the Rowdies have strived to attend other sporting events beyond Varsity Football and Varsity Men’s Basketball.

“We would go to swim meets at Winston-Salem State,” Wauford said. “We would dress silly and take like fishing rods to the pool and hold them out from the stands and pretend to fish.”

They brought their infectious spirit to every sporting event they could attend, from baseball to volleyball.

“Trying to positively cheer on our team, you know, certainly there were times where you know you wanted to speak negatively about other players, which you shouldn’t do, but the teachers are really good about it,” Wauford said.

One of the teachers who helped was Ruth Sartin, a current English teacher at RJR. She served as a supervisor for the Rowdies in their formative years.

“Well, they were really Rowdy, and because both my sons were involved in sports and stuff, I was going to all games anyway,” Sartin said. “Our athletic director at the time said we need somebody to keep a lid on him because they could be really nasty.”

During RJR’s championship-winning seasons, Sartin was constantly spotted at their games.

“I just had to sit mainly in basketball,” Sartin said. “I’d have to sit down near where they at end the court and give them a really ugly look and wag my finger at him whenever they started saying negative things.”

Thomas Moore, a counselor here at RJR, has been able to experience all three aspects of the Rowdies: as a student, a soccer player, and the Varsity Women’s Soccer head coach.

“We’re really involved in going stuff, we’ve always packed out the student sections of basketball games,” Moore said. “We always went [to] all the football games regardless if we weren’t good. And we were always loud and try to make our presence known.”

Not only did he cheer in the stands, he competed in front of the Rowdies. During Moore’s senior year, he scored all three goals to beat rival Mount Tabor 3-2 in overtime.

“It’s inspiring to hear them chanting, and it helps you were team,” Moore said. “Also, the other team feels the momentum sliding away. Anytime you have people cheering you on, you play a little harder, you run faster, you dig a little deeper.”

Over the past twenty years, the Rowdies have changed, but nonetheless remained true to their primary goals. Current Athletic Director Brad Fisher meets with the four Rowdies Presidents in August to create a plan to achieve their goal of promoting student attendance at games.

“I’m kind [of] like a faculty advisor,” Fisher said. “I view us as partners where they can come to me if they have questions about doing something or want to go about something. I’m between the students and the school administration, and at the time, I use them [the Rowdies] as the middleman.”

The Rowdies have also grown both in numbers and inclusivity. Kate Wattleworth served as the first female Rowdies President just last year, and Chandler Welsh followed in her footsteps this year.

“Being the second female Rowdies President ever is such a great honor,” Welsh said. “I think it’s great for the school and athletes to have female and male representation.”

In addition to its presidents, the Rowdies as a whole have grown more diverse since its start, but efforts can still be made to be a complete reflection of the total RJR student demographic.

“It was pretty representative of the student body as a whole and not just one demographic as students,” Wauford said. “It was diverse, both age-wise and race-wise, and everything, so that was cool to see just a really good sample of the entire high school out to games.

The Rowdies have capitalized on social media and other forms of technology to grow and promote RJR sporting events.

“I think there’s some cool additions to the Rowdies,” Wauford said. “The Rowdies going to the field and interviewing the star players of the game and posting on social media, that’s really cool. Just continuing to sort of encourage and show people what the athletes are doing because that was definitely not available in 2001.”

The Rowdies have made many strides in the past twenty-three years, and they don’t plan on stopping. Something that once started with an idea of the then RJR high school juniors Wauford and Robinson and a handful t-shirts has grown into something bigger than they could’ve ever imagined.

“We see the t-shirts around Winston, and that’s pretty cool,” Wauford said. “I saw one that said like since 1999. I mean, you know, twenty-four years later that it’s still going and getting new generations of Reynolds students.”