BV’s James holds strong values

Ali­cia James

Story and photo by

LIZ ROBERTSON

Play­ing soc­cer since the third grade, it was not until she was a senior that Ali­cia James had her first injury four or five games into her final 13-game season.

Yet the Buck­eye Val­ley senior found the expe­ri­ence as a sec­ond year cap­tain pro­vided her with a dif­fer­ent insight from being a leader on the field to being a leader on the side­lines. And, she said, it allowed her to get to know those on the side­line more.

Ali­cia, still recov­er­ing from surgery, is hop­ing to get the brace off before the hol­i­day break. The lig­a­ment had dis­in­te­grated so the sur­geon pulled a ham­string through and cre­ated a new one.

But she was happy that before the surgery, she was able to play one final game with the brace.

“I’ve played since third grade. It’s the only sport I ever played,” she said, adding, “I love it.”

With a senior year that began rather rough, she said she feels good now. One major deci­sion has already been made; she has been accepted and has decided to attend Cedarville Uni­ver­sity. Ali­cia wanted to go to a Chris­t­ian col­lege fore­most. Where they share the same beliefs and val­ues. The pro­fes­sors (at Cedarville) are “really Christ centered.”

She will focus her stud­ies on mid­dle school edu­ca­tion with a minor in Bible to ful­fill her dream of becom­ing a teacher. She prefers to teach the mid­dle school age level to be able to address more in-depth concepts.

“I want to make an impact on kids’ lives,” Ali­cia said. She has wanted to teach ever since first grade when her teacher that year made an impres­sion on her.

She admits another plus for Cedarville is that it is close to home.

“I’m really close with my fam­ily, so I really want to come back,” she said, not­ing the three week vaca­tion of the past sum­mer, when her fam­ily bonded. “It was neat see­ing all the cre­ations, and you just know there is a God.”

But before that she would like to do mis­sion work. With her knowl­edge of Span­ish, she knows there are loca­tions either in South Amer­ica or the Caribbean where she could go.

“I’ve always wanted to, but never had the oppor­tu­nity,” she said of par­tic­i­pat­ing in mis­sion work.

For now though Ali­cia is busy as senior class vice pres­i­dent as well as with her work in the National Honor Soci­ety, stu­dent coun­cil, Teen Insti­tute and the Fel­low­ship of Chris­t­ian Ath­letes — all activ­i­ties that she has been involved through­out high school.

Social stud­ies teacher Doug Joseph knows Ali­cia through NHS and as her teacher in the his­tory class taught in con­junc­tion with Kenyon College.

“Ali­cia has devel­oped a strong sense of val­ues, includ­ing the impor­tance of an edu­ca­tion. She is extremely hard-working and very con­sci­en­tious and respon­si­ble,” Joseph said.

“Ali­cia is one of those stu­dents who you just know will thrive in a col­lege sit­u­a­tion, tak­ing on the chal­lenges placed in front of her and most likely chal­leng­ing those around her. She is an excel­lent choice for Teen of the Week.”

Gery Kovatch had Ali­cia in pre-calculus last year and this year for hon­ors physics. The teacher said he can­not wait to see how her future unfolds.

“Ali­cia is a dili­gent stu­dent and leader who is always actively engaged in what­ever we’re doing in class. In hon­ors physics, where stu­dents tackle a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of college-level prob­lems, Ali­cia has become quite an adept prob­lem solver,” he said.

Kovatch went on to say that “Ali­cia is actively involved out­side the class­room as well. Out of all of her many accom­plish­ments, I would say the one that stands out for me is when she orga­nized and ran a ‘Kick for the Cure’ event. As an active mem­ber of her church and as the senior leader of the Fel­low­ship of Chris­t­ian Ath­letes, Ali­cia is a strong young woman of faith.”

Ali­cia said the “Kick for the Cure” event was begun last year after her mother bat­tled breast can­cer. The money raised from the event goes to help pay expenses for some­one in the com­mu­nity who also has breast cancer.

Ali­cia said that with recent infor­ma­tion on can­cer, she has learned she has a 50 per­cent of con­tract­ing it her­self. Both she and her brother will be tested in the near future to see if they carry a spe­cific gene linked to the disease.

The can­cer fundraiser is just one area where Ali­cia vol­un­teers. She also has helped with the hol­i­day clear­ing­house for PIN the last four years, helps and teaches in the preschool at her church, vol­un­teers at the CORE Cen­ter in Delaware and at the east food pantry in Ash­ley. Other vol­un­teer projects have been through 4-H and the Teen Institute.

In addi­tion, she has worked at a local gro­cer for the past two years and has just begun tutor­ing stu­dents at the mid­dle school. Ali­cia has also been a mem­ber of 4-H for the past eight years, show­ing hogs mostly, but also doing projects in cre­ative arts and clothing.

She was in honor guard last year and has received numer­ous awards includ­ing being an OHSAA lead­er­ship rep­re­sen­ta­tive her junior year and receiv­ing a sports­man­ship award in 10th grade. She was also MVP her junior year in soc­cer, scholar ath­lete each year and received the principal’s lead­er­ship award this year.

“It’s hard to leave,” she said of her time at Buck­eye Val­ley. “I’m enjoy­ing the time we have and hope to stay close as we go our sep­a­rate ways.”

She said some­day she may even teach at Buck­eye Valley.

She tells oth­ers to “enjoy the years. They go by very fast. I was told that as a fresh­man, but I did not believe it.” Instead of stress­ing out over school work, she advises oth­ers to slow down and take a breather.

“Don’t worry about tomor­row, just enjoy today,” she said.

Ali­cia is the daugh­ter of DeeDee and Mark James of Radnor.

Posted by Liz Robertson on Dec 16 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.