50 Years of Cheers

Natalino Monachese exited his warm Winnebago and cut across an empty parking lot, adjusting the collar of his blue button-down as the first sun spilled over Medford, Oregon.  He didn't know it at the time, but on this July morning in 2004, Monachese was on a mission that would change the rest of his life.

A born Canadian and lifelong traveler, Monachese had rumbled down the street one month prior in a sun-faded surprise for his kids, a rented RV that the family used to roam the rolling mountains of the Pacific Northwest, on a winding exploration timed to his wife’s birthday.

A birthday cake order had pushed Monachese through the front door of the nearest Walmart, where the end of an associate meeting caught his attention: a burst of voices starting a cheer. He slowed his steps, curiosity pulling him closer.

“I’m getting my coffee and muffins,” he recalled, “and I hear this cheer going on, everybody clapping and doing their thing. So, I walked over and asked, ‘What are you guys doing?’”  

   
An associate told him it was the Walmart cheer and Monachese blinked: “Wow, that’s kinda weird. I’ve never seen any stores do that,” he thought.  

He didn’t know it, but that cheer was the first of many for Monachese, a spark that would end up launching a career. Monachese thought that would be his last cheer encounter. But as he drove back north weeks later, the cheer just wouldn’t shake. The experience lingered.

“We stopped again at the same Walmart,” he said. “And I told my wife, ‘You know, honey, I’m gonna go do the cheer with them.’ They were this super passionate, big group, and I thought that was kinda different. My wife knows what I was up to but even she looked at me like I was crazy. She said, ‘You’re going to do what?’”

But Monachese was determined.

The next morning, he slipped into the store, hoping to blend in as a Walmart associate. As the team gathered, he quietly joined the back of the group.

“Everybody started doing the cheer, and I’m kinda learning as I go,” he said. “People started looking at me, asking, ‘Hey, who are you? You working here? Are you new?’”

Monachese was, in fact, none of these things. He didn’t even work at Walmart — yet.

“‘No, just a customer,’” he explained. “And they were like, ‘You’re a customer?! You’re doing the cheer with us?’”

He grinned. “I told them, ‘Yeah! Why not?’” 

Instead of being turned away, Monachese was welcomed — and hooked. Over the next decade, he made it a personal tradition to join the Walmart cheer in stores across the U.S. and Canada.

Eventually, his passion carried him into a Walmart vest. In 2013, Monachese joined Walmart Store 3196, in St. John’s, Newfoundland Canada, as a backroom stockperson. From there he rose quickly; four months was all it took to land an assistant manager position. When he was asked to lead his first official cheer, he didn’t need to hesitate.

For Monachese, the cheer became a point of pride, a way of belonging.

“From Sam’s beginnings, it was always customer first and he takes care of his associates,” Monachese said. “With the cheer it’s ‘Give me a W, give me an A, give me an L, a squiggly…’ We’re spelling out Walmart and saying it loud because we’re proud of what we do here. The cheer stands the test of time because it’s simple, straight to the point and not complicated. It’s something everyone can relate to.”

Where It All Began

The impulse Monachese felt — that urge to join in — stretches back 50 years, to Sam Walton’s belief that a simple cheer could create connection and humility. And as the cheer’s half-century anniversary approaches, these same ideals resurface in every space where associates gather and raise their voices.

Walton’s ‘Made in America’ biography places his trip to Asia, where the idea for the cheer first took root, in 1975. It was Helen Walton whose quote on her trip abroad gives us the earliest known indicator of where it all began: “Sam took me out to see this tennis ball factory, somewhere east of Seoul... It was the first place he ever saw a group of workers have a company cheer. And he liked the idea of everybody doing calisthenics together at the beginning of the day.”

But an early copy of Walmart World Magazine casts doubt on the original timeline: In an open letter Sam Walton penned in May of 1976, he detailed some upcoming travel plans to Japan, Korea and Taiwan for factory tours.

This discrepancy changes our timeline, placing the 50th Anniversary of the Walmart cheer right here, in 2026. And while the company is always happy to celebrate a special day, the seeds of this history were planted long before Sam made his fabled journey.

He was an early proponent of cheers, chants and calls alike. He believed they could bring people together. And that inspiration came from his home state of Arkansas, where the Razorbacks have one of the most iconic cheers in college sports.

Walton saw an ‘every man’ character in the Hog call – an equalizer, bringing CEOs, associates and even college football fans onto a level playing field with raised arms, and harmonized cries of “Woo Pig Sooie!”

“We make our people feel part of a family in which no one is too important or too puffed up to lead a cheer or be the butt of a joke,” Walton said.

Give Me a Squiggly!

Group movement transcends borders. In the same way the Macarena became a 1996 global dance phenomenon that continues to sway hips today, the Walmart cheer is buoyed by its signature move: the squiggly.

It serves as a moment of levity to remind people to keep things in perspective and find fun in the little moments.

“The squiggly always gets a smile and that was part of the point,” said Rob Walton, the former chairman of the board for Walmart Inc. “My dad believed that just because we work hard it doesn’t mean we have to take ourselves so seriously. That little moment in the cheer, when people loosen up and laugh, is part of how we connect with each other and better serve the customer.”

The Cheer Goes Global

Connection is at the core of the Walmart cheer. And since its humble beginnings, it’s connected Walmart associates worldwide.

Red, white and the upbeat clanging of cowbells trailed the Walmart Canada team during Associates Week 2026, where they debuted multiple cheers with ties to a deep-rooted Canadian pride. 

Kate Mahli, an events manager at Walmart Canada, says associates take time at the start of the week to bond and create cheers.

“For the past several years, the Canadian delegation has set aside time on Monday morning for delegates to get to know each other and build team spirit,”Mahli said. “A longstanding tradition includes creating cheers that celebrate Canadian pride, often featuring references such as red and white, ‘eh,’ moose, beaver, goose, poutine and 1994, the year Walmart Canada was founded. Cowbells are also a signature noisemaker for this delegation.”

Further down North America, in Mexico, tail-end customizations prove widely popular, with each Walmart banner changing the last part of the cheer in its own way to highlight the importance of that brand’s characteristics.

“What are we? Mercaderes!” trails the Bodega Aurrera cheer.

And south of Mexico, in Chile, the cheer takes on the pulse of a national obsession.

Fútbol  pride runs so deep in Chile that the Venn diagram between team chants and Walmart cheers merge into a single circle. At Associates Week 2026, “Olé Olé Olé Olé, Chile!! Chile!!” was part of the regular Walmart cheer routine.

While the official cheer in Chile remains the same, Javiera Feito, deputy manager of internal communications for Walmart Chile, explained how subtle changes have been introduced over time.

“Around 2016, we added a special twist to make it more relatable to our stores and to make our associates feel more included,” Javiera said. "So, our version ends with ‘Who is number one? The customer, always, huh... and us too!!’”

Thousands of miles east across the Atlantic, the rhythm changes again.

According to Massmart communications manager Tinabo Majaye-Khupe, the original words of the Walmart cheer remain unchanged, but the delivery is completely transformed by weaving in vibrant, pan-African musical influences.

“There is a golden thread that ties us all together: Singing, dancing and drumming, that’s our thing,” Majaye-Kupe said.

From Africa, the journey spins eastward once more to China.

“The Chinese Walmart Cheer does add more movement to the ‘squiggly’ part with the leader calling out ‘let’s stomp our feet, let’s sway our waist, let’s laugh out loud’ and the rest of the team responding physically with the actual movements and sounds,” said Yoyo Xu, a member of the communications team at Walmart China who attended Associates Week.

Across the world, the cheer may wear a different rhythm in different stores, but its spirit endures.

What began 50 years ago with the energy of “Woo Pig” and Korean calisthenics to the sounds that stopped Natalino Monachese in his tracks, the cheer is a passport that has been stamped in dozens of countries and languages, carrying the echoes of Sam Walton’s original belief that laughter and unity belong at the heart of business worldwide.