Meitler grew up in Fremont, Neb., a town of nearly 28,000 northwest of Omaha.

In high school, she was a cheerleader her sophomore and junior seasons. In the summer before her senior year at Fremont High School, Meitler went to basic training for the Army. The FHS spirit squad routinely attended cheer camps in the summer, including sessions at the University of Kansas, but Meitler couldn’t attend that last summers due to basic training. She was unable to be on the cheer squad as a cheerleader upon her return from basic training because she missed camp that summer, but played softball and served on the spirit squad in a different manner her senior year — as the FHS Tigers mascot.

Meitler graduated from FHS in 1993 and then left for the Army’s advanced individual training in Georgia that summer.

When she returned to Nebraska, Meitler enrolled at the community college in Fremont. She was there two years before enrolling at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln in 1995.

KETV screenshot

An elementary education major at UNL, Meitler was an upperclassmen when a friend saw an advertisement in the Daily Nebraskan, the school’s student newspaper. The NU spirit squad was holding tryouts for their mascot.

“‘You should try out, Gretchen,'” Meitler recalled her friend telling her. “I thought it would be a fun thing to do and the rest is kind of history.”

Meitler tried out and made the squad along with two or three other Nebraska students.

Speaking of history, Meitler’s promotion to the mascot field at NU became an historic footnote: she was Nebraska’s first-ever female mascot for the Huskers.

KETV screenshot

Though student’s identities generally are kept under wraps, news of Meitler being the university’s first female mascot spread. An Omaha news affiliate eventually learned of the situation and interviewed her.

Meitler downplayed the significance a bit in the interview, noting that there are several women who don the mascot gear nationally.

“It’s not so much being a woman as being a character,” Meitler said in the November 1996 interview on Omaha’s KETV.

The Herbie gig kept Meitler pretty busy in Lincoln. In addition to cheering at Nebraska football, basketball and volleyball events, she also made appearances across the state at various philanthropic events and other community happenings.

Though she didn’t make the trip to Miami to the Orange Bowl at the end of that Nebraska football season, she was on the sidelines in Lubbock, Texas, for Nebraska’s Big 12 Conference game against Texas Tech, a contest the Huskers won, 24-10. That year also marked the first for newly formed Big 12, which Nebraska left in 2011.

Meitler recalled mascot tryouts consisting of a routine, some freestyle work and then a musical performance.

She also stepped into the mascot game as the Huskers were making some changes. Lil Red, Nebraska’s inflatable mascot, came onto the scene the previous school year and 1996-97 marked the first year for a revamped Herbie Husker costume. Meitler said people on average lose between 3-5 pounds of water weight while wearing the costume on gameday. Meitler was able to get a breather out of view of the crowd at Memorial Stadium for football games, but those August and September football games could be especially toasty inside the costume. She also donned the Lil Red costume. That mascot came equipped with a 12-volt battery pack that the students wore on one hip and a leaf-blower-type contraption on the other.

“It was super hot,” Meitler said of wearing the Herbie Husker mascot, especially on game days at Memorial Stadium. “You’d go back in the closet-like thing and try to go into and dress down and cool off.”

Meitler also noted that she was a scholarship athlete, though then joked that “it wasn’t much of a scholarship.

Not that she was ungrateful for what the scholarship did provide, but it covered books and tuition and was worth $500 each semester.

She had the opportunity to fly on a charter plane as part of her Herbie perks and was court side for a volleyball tournament in Illinois.

Ironically enough, the same coach that prevented Meitler from being a cheerleader invited her to be the high school mascot sponsor for a camp at Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville.

In addition, a Fremont bank asked Meitler to put together a handbook for its mascot, Ernie Eagle.

“It was a close to a full-time job,” Meitler said, noting the games and all of the outside appearances.

She said a visit to a children’s burn unit at a Lincoln hospital was her most rewarding appearance.

Meitler still has her scrapbook of memories from her time as Herbie Husker and some hardware to boot. She won a spirit stick and a trophy for being named best mascot at a camp competition in college.

She’ll don a Nebraska sweatshirt as well, but Meitler has only been back for a football game in Lincoln once when she received a ticket as part of Salute to Heroes campaign for military members.

Nebraska football made its 54th bowl appearance and first since 2016 Saturday with the Pinstripe Bowl. Nebraska defeated Boston College, 20-15, on Saturday.

Meitler left school late in 1997 to take a job with the Army Reserves as a civilian. She’s now a 20-year veteran of the military and currently operates LIFE Preschool south of Tonganoxie, a position she’s held for several years at the preschool and daycare center.

She received a Quilt of Valor during Veterans Day ceremonies in November at Tonganoxie High School.

Meitler serves as Post Commander for Tonganoxie VFW Post 9271. Surprise –she’s also the post’s first female commander and was the first female in her high school to join the military.

“I just like to be first,” Meitler said.