Life had a way of always leading Sabrina Bailey to Columbus.

Originally from Meridian, Bailey remembers driving into town each year for homecoming at her mother’s alma mater, Mississippi University for Women.

Years later, seeing the chance to spend time on the same campus where her mom got her degree – and where she hoped to study – Bailey applied to the Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science.

“I knew I wanted to get away from home and experience something new,” she said. “I knew I was mature for my age back then and that I was ready to move on and do greater things.”

At first, Bailey was waitlisted. The school only had state funding for 110 students that year, she said. But with funding from private donations and scholarships, the school opened eight more spots just before the start of the semester, including one for Bailey.

“I must have been 111 because I showed up for orientation and got my letter,” she said. “It was so special. My mom and I cried. We were very excited. It was just meant to be.”

Despite some early nerves about making friends and fitting in, Bailey thrived at MSMS. It was the first time she wasn’t bored in her classes.

Her chemistry teacher in particular, Kaye Truitt, made an impression on her.

“When I met Sabrina as a junior at MSMS, she was an outgoing, excellent student, excited to meet students from different communities,” Truitt wrote in a text to The Dispatch. “She … enjoyed helping other students who didn’t understand chemistry as quickly and capably as she did.”

It was in Truitt’s classroom where Bailey discovered her love for chemistry – a subject she had once dreaded. At MSMS, where she could take high level courses like analytical and organic chemistry, it became a passion.

With Truitt’s encouragement, Bailey decided to major in chemistry. It was a far cry from the plan she had set for herself.

“(MSMS) definitely pushed me outside of the confines of what I thought my life was going to be,” she said. “I thought I was going to go to The W and be a teacher. I did not go to The W, and while I did become a teacher for one year, it’s not quite for me.”

Instead, Bailey started her undergraduate career at Belmont University in Nashville. But she felt as if something was calling her back to the Golden Triangle, so her sophomore year, she transferred to Mississippi State to finish her bachelor’s in chemistry.

After graduating in 2022, she worked in Mississippi State’s Chemical Lab alongside the husband of one of her MSMS teachers. She left that job to teach for a year at Columbus High School, but ultimately decided she preferred the individualized teaching tutoring offers to managing a classroom.

Now, Bailey splits her time between serving as the youth minister at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, working for her mother’s nonprofit, Illumination Center for Dyslexia – which provides dyslexia therapy to students – and tutoring students. She’s developing new ways to teach students with dyscalculia, a learning disability that affects math comprehension and number-based information.

“It’s that personal connection that strives me forward to do better and teach them better and make sure that they’re understanding the materials,” she said. “It’s not necessarily that they’re afflicted with dyscalculia or dyslexia, it’s that they’re real students in the real world trying to understand something, and it’s important to me that they meet their goals.”

The way she sees it, there was always an invisible string pulling Bailey back to Columbus, where she and her husband, Spencer, now live.

“It never stopped,” she said. “Now that we’re here full time and have a house, it’s been amazing getting back into the community. It’s like being home again.”

Bailey credits her time at MSMS with helping to shape the person she is today, a transformation Truitt has witnessed firsthand.

“The same characteristics I saw in her as a teenager have developed into a young adult who is a natural teacher and encourager; someone with compassion for and interest in others, who is willing to talk about her beliefs and listen to and respect others,” Truitt said.

McRae is a general assignment and education reporter for The Dispatch.