Extra Effort: Alayna Gaddy feels at home playing softball and bringing others together

Corinth Holders senior Alayna Gaddy feels at home with a glove, a ball and a bat in hand.

"It's like a safe place for me, so just being on the field with my friends, with my family, it just really gives me peace whenever the world around me is just crazy," Gaddy said.

Even with graduation this year, she'll get to be at home a little longer: Gaddy will play softball for Jacksonville University in college.

"It's always been my goal, I've always wanted to play Division I softball, wherever it took me, wherever God led me to be and Jacksonville just felt like home," Gaddy said.

She's made quite a mark at her current home, Corinth Holders High School, where she's only been attending for two years.

In the classroom she's part of the National Math Honor Society.

"Honors math three is a very challenge course," math teacher Elizabeth Hearn said, "but she never complained, excessively, I'm not going to say she never complained because she is a high school student," she laughed.

"She wanted to know the 'why' as well as get good grades."

She's very involved in her community, with programs like Circle of Friends, even attending the Special Olympics last year. Gaddy started the first girls bible study at Corinth Holders, she's very passionate about her faith.

"And her faith is something that just is evident in the way that she lives her life," varsity softball head coach Nella Chamblee said.

What stands out in speaking to Gaddy, her coaches and her teachers, is how much she cares. Cares about what she does, cares about the people around her.

"Softball and high school is one thing, but she's just a wonderful person, I would like everybody to get to know her," assistant principal Chris Howell said.

"She's the type of person who's gonna try and connect with every single player on the team, that in turn leads the team to come together more and be more unified," Chamblee added.

Head JV softball coach and assistant varsity coach Peyton Jenkins is also a recent addition to Corinth Holders. She and Gaddy have become quite close over the past two years. Jenkins says she's amazed by the senior's maturity and drive to help others.

"She's so strong in herself, that she wants to make sure that other people can feel that and have that too, she wants to make sure other people can find that heart in them as well," Jenkins said.

And that's why Alayna Gaddy is this week's winner of the Tom Suiter Extra Effort Award.