Friday, May 19, 2006

Tennis and Toyota are big parts of Abby Fairman's resume

Scholarship winner plays at state tennis today


By JEFF CORDES
Express Staff Writer

Wood River High School senior Abby Fairman will grab a ball and step up to the serving line today during the State 4A tennis tournament in Caldwell.

Being at the state tennis tournament is nothing new for Fairman. She's been there four times, quite rare for a Wood River player. And she's used to having a lot of balls in the air.

Her admiring tennis coach, Vicki Johnston, said about Fairman, "She's got a lot of things going on and somehow keeps it all together. With all the senioritis that goes on in the spring, she's pretty focused and has a lot of discipline."

One weekend it's Kentucky for a scholarship and the next it's Boise for state tennis. In less than two weeks she'll graduate from Wood River.

Last weekend, for instance, Fairman traveled by herself to Louisville, Ky. She toured the famous Churchill Downs race track, visited the Toyota automobile manufacturing plant in nearby Georgetown, test-drove a Toyota Zion ("it was a blast," she said) and took a leisurely boat ride on the Ohio River.

She also formally accepted a four-year college scholarship worth $10,000 from Toyota which, of course, was the main reason she was there.

Out of 10,000 applicants nationwide, Fairman was one of 100 outstanding high school seniors awarded Toyota Community Scholars grants for 2006. Fairman was the only recipient from the state of Idaho.

"I was thrilled and very honored to be chosen," said Fairman. "And it was a really elite group. Out of the 100 students there, 30 are going to Harvard. It was awesome to be associated with such a group."

Community service was one of the main requirements for the Toyota scholarship recipients and Fairman fit the bill.

She was active in getting The HUB teen activity center off the ground at The Community Campus in Hailey. Fairman, 18, is proud of her role in making the center a reality.

"We needed a space where kids could go after school and on weekends. And because it offers so many different activities, The HUB is a great way for kids to get exposed to different things in a valley that has so much to offer in the first place. It's a hub of activity," she said.

Besides being active in the Blaine County Teen Advisory Council that started The HUB, Fairman worked in a local soup kitchen, tutored at Wood River Middle School and helped with The Advocates program.

She estimates she has more than 500 hours of community service during four years of attending the Hailey high school.

High school guidance counselor Kimberly Hochendoner brought the Toyota Community Scholar program to Fairman's attention last fall. Wood River needed to choose one student to apply for the grant—and Fairman was the one selected.

In January she was chosen as a finalist and had to re-submit a more detailed application concerning her many community service activities. By April, Fairman learned she was Idaho's one and only Toyota scholarship winner.

She flew to Kentucky to be honored with the other winners May 11-13 and was back in school Monday morning to accept another honor, the Prudential Spirit of Community Award, during the school's Citizenship Award assembly.

Having been born in Boise and raised in the Wood River Valley since age two, Fairman is a small-town girl. During her college search process Abby visited Dartmouth College, her father's alma mater. She preferred something smaller. The Toyota grant helped her decide.

Fairman elected to attend College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass. about 60 miles from Boston. It's a small, undergraduate liberal arts Jesuit college of 2,700 students—oldest Catholic college in New England dating back 163 years.

She is undecided about what she'll be studying ("something with law, maybe," she said) but knowing Fairman, she'll be actively involved at college.

The tennis in springtime has been one of the main recreational outlets for Fairman, who maintains a 3.8 GPA and has things like National Honor Society, Student Council, Interact Rotary Club and Family, Career and Community Leaders of America on her long resume.

"I love tennis," said Fairman. "Spring is definitely a time of year I look forward to."

Fairman said she has been an Atkinson Park Rat her whole life, which means she has been part of the Ketchum Summer Youth Recreation Program since she was young.

"I came up through the ranks," Fairman said with a laugh. "And when I got older I worked for three summers at the park as a tennis coach."

Her first tennis coach was Atkinson Park director Kirk Mason, who also coached Abby as a freshman player at Wood River. It's been girls' doubles for Fairman all the way along and she has sampled different partners in her prep career.

In 2003, as a freshman, she played girls' doubles with senior Allison Kelsey and placed third at the state tournament. As a sophomore in 2004 she won the district girls' doubles championship with senior Ellie France and won three matches at the state tennis tournament.

Last year, Wood River's first at the tougher 4A level, Fairman won the Great Basin Conference girls' doubles championship with Jackie Safran and again won three state matches.

Today in Caldwell, Fairman and junior partner Kira Gardner will play their opening state match against a team from Bonneville High School in Idaho Falls. And they'll try to play as many matches as they can over the two-day tourney.

"Kira and I have become really comfortable with each other and hopefully we can push it a little more at state and do well there," said Fairman.

Fairman has enjoyed being teamed with different partners.

"It keeps it fresh, being with a new partner," she said. "Learning to work with someone else has been good for me. I'm big on communication, and I'd like to think I work well with my peers and that I take on leadership roles."

Her coach Johnston has nothing but good things to say about Fairman, who spent the summer between her junior and senior year at a tennis camp at Dartmouth College.

Johnston said, "Abby just has a positive attitude and is such a caring person. It's a real treat to have her on the team. She keeps the boys in line and is definitely respectful to my rules."

Fairman said she has benefited from Johnston's quickness and footwork drills this spring. She said she has always been pretty solid with her ground strokes, but she feels her net play and serving has improved at the same time that she has been in better shape.

"She plays very well in doubles and is super consistent," said Johnston. "Right now her best qualities are her net play. In practice the other day she played some of the best tennis I've ever seen her play."

This summer, Fairman will work at the RSVP stationery store in Ketchum to save money for college. She'll miss leaving her parents Dan and Kim at home this fall when she goes to Holy Cross, and she'll miss her brother Connor, a sophomore at Wood River.

The big transition will likely go smoothly for a girl who always has a lot of balls in the air and knows where they are.




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