Those gathered in the meeting room at Lion Hills Center on Thursday held their breath as the final award of the day was ready to be announced.
“And this year’s (Accepting the Challenge of Excellence) award goes to … Josh Pitts,” Ann Marie Langford of the Columbus Exchange Club announced.
The 6-foot-5 Caledonia High School pitcher stood to his full height with a grin on his face as he moved to accept the plaque of recognition. The ACE award is given to a high school student who has “made a dramatic change in their attitude and performance during their high school years” in order to overcome adversity.
Pitts was recognized as this year’s winner after Travis Garner, former Caledonia High baseball coach and current Bevill State Community College head baseball coach, saw Pitts’ perseverance to continue with schooling and baseball past high school despite being diagnosed with an “extreme case” of Attention Deficit Disorder early in his high school career and unexpectedly becoming a father his junior year.
In Pitts’ essay submission for the award, Pitts said he was focused on baseball and improving his game, but that was thrown for a loop when he received the news he would be a father.
“At an early age, I set out to continually improve my game by focusing only on baseball, but life has a way of throwing curveballs, even on to the most focused individual,” Pitts wrote. “My curveball became one of my proudest accomplishments. My greatest accomplishment is the birth of my daughter, Merritt. Having a daughter at the young age of 17, while still in high school, may not be the ‘way of the world’ but honestly, she has saved me in more ways than one. … Through Merritt, I have learned to push forward no matter what is thrown my way.”
According to Garner, Pitts was focused on being able to continue baseball and finish high school, as well as being a good father. Pitts will attend Bevill State to play baseball as a pitcher for his college career.
There were two other candidates for the ACE Award: Jacob Minga from Columbus Christian Academy and Taylor Fulgham from New Hope High School.
Minga was born with profound hearing loss in both ears, and after a mission trip to Logan, West Virginia, Minga saw a lady who transformed the way he thinks. A woman who was homeless was at church and did not hesitate to give money as the offering plate was passed around.
Because of this experience, he now has told this story at another church and has been able to teach about overcoming disability despite the odds.
Fulgham lost her mother suddenly to a brain tumor her freshman year of high school and wrote that “perseverance” is the one word that describes her high school career. After her mother passed, she decided to embrace life with a positive outlook and forced herself to adopt her mom’s motto: “It is OK to be a glow stick.
Sometimes we have to break before we shine.”
Because of his local award, which earned him a small scholarship, Pitts’ story will have the opportunity to allow the senior to receive a $15,000 scholarship from the National Exchange Club.
Youth of the Year
With five candidates for Youth of the Year, Amy Zhang — a Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science student from Starkville — stood out most to the members of Exchange Club.
The Youth of the Year award is given to “hard-working high school students who attain high levels of scholastic achievement, community involvement and leadership.” The candidates must write an essay following a prompt, and this year’s prompt asked the students to reflect on how the COVID-19 pandemic helped them learn about themselves, their community and the world in topics such as empathy, prioritizing and social inequalities.
Zhang serves as the student representative for the Mississippi Board of Education, and she was a conference panelist at the National Association of State Boards of Education conference where she advocated for equitable STEM education for all students.
In her essay, Zhang told of how the pandemic helped her start prioritizing different things in her life.
“The pandemic wasn’t easy to navigate, but it gave me an opportunity to grow, both as a person and an educational advocate,” Zhang wrote. “Journaling has helped me reevaluate my priorities, allowing me to invest more time into things that are important, like self-awareness, friendships, and educational policy. My bullet journal has been the catalyst for a lot of growth during COVID, and has shaped me into a devoted leader and passionate advocate, ready to continue my work in policy in the future.”
Zhang was unavailable to accept her award as she was taking an Advanced Placement (AP) test.
The four other candidates for the Youth of the Year award were Sunny Logan from Caledonia High School, Emma O’Bryant from New Hope High School, Madison McCarter from Victory Christian Academy and Jeremiah Crawford from West Lowndes High School.
