Story and photographs By Cindy Howle
These local teens and ‘tweens show determination, intelligence, athleticism and all-around awesomeness in their dedication to a sport, a discipline or a career path. Their taste of success is just the beginning.
Mac Banner:
Homegrown Mountain Biking Champion
Cross-country mountain biker Mac Banner, 17, practices jumps on a course he made himself in his backyard. The Oxford High student has traveled all over North America to compete.
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Tall and lanky with well-defined calf muscles, 17-year-old Mac Banner is a self-propelled Evel Knievel. At 15, he placed fourth in the Junior National Championships for cross-country mountain bike racing.
"The competition is intense, as you can imagine," said Mac's father, Ian Banner.
Determined and focused, Mac takes his specialized downhill bike and flies over the training features and berms that he handcarved in his backyard. His inner daredevil brought him to downhill racing.
"It's more extreme, with a lot more risk," he said. "I like riding on the fine edge of pushing limits without crashing."
A successful mountain biker like Mac needs dedication, strong lungs and conditioned muscles, said Kevin Stuart, owner of Oxford Bike Company and a former downhill racer who helped Mac train.
"It's an endurance sport. You've got to have an adventurous spirit and drive," Stuart said. "Mac has yet to do his greatest cycling. He is on his way up."
Junior Nationals in Mount Snow, Vt., required pedaling straight up and then back down, completing five miles of rocky mountain terrain. He finished fourth in cross-country and was the only Mississippian in his league.
Mac is a regular competitor at the local Clear Creek Challenge and in the South Central Regional Championship Series, racing in Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana and Tennessee. His eye is on the Olympics.
Last July, while training at Canada's Camp Gravity in Whistler, B.C., Mac broke his collar bone and fractured his elbow. The solo flight home was a long one. This year, he goes back to Whistler. The site of the 2010 Winter Olympics is used as a summer bike park. Riders take ski lifts up and cycle down at warp speed.
Mac's mom, Betsy, can't watch.
"If I think about it, my toes start tingling. I just have to listen to those that watch," she said. "He was born on a Thursday, and ‘Thursday's child has far to go.' I want him to go far. . . I just want him to live his dream."
Girl Power:
Horsemanship and Olympic Dreams
Libby Sleeper (top right) helps day camper Anna Grace Shields learn the basics of horsemanship at Cedar Winds horse farm. At bottom, daycamper Mia Sinha (in the
helmet) gets a lesson from sister Alexa Sinha. Libby and Alexa are members of Southern Run Pony Club, regional U.S. Pony Club winners.
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It's a hot June day on the Cedar Wind horse farm in eastern Lafayette County, and the horseflies are plentiful.
"What's this?" 10-year-old Elizabeth Hubbard asks day camper Mia Sinha, pointing at the horse's tail. Mia ponders.
"Something ock?" she responds.
"It's the...?" Elizabeth says.
"Dock!" Mia, age 11, answers.
Elizabeth and five other girls who trained day campers in horsemanship and safety at Cedar Wind over the summer are all U.S. Pony Club Deep South region winners.
In late May, as members of the Southern Run Pony Club, the group traveled to Gulfport, Miss., for the regional U.S. Pony Club rally. Alexa Sinha, 13, and Elizabeth placed first in overall scores and horse management with their team.
The Deep South regional pitted the Oxford riders against teams from Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama and Florida.
Teamwork is central to the U.S. Pony Club's philosophy, with four riders and one stable manager working together.
Tack and horses must all be spotless, and the tack room must be well organized.
"With all the horses, it's a lot of work sometimes," said team captain Libby Sleeper, who struggled to keep her messy horse clean. She and Karen Guzman, 13, won fifth place overall with their team.
Riders must keep track of riding schedules and be prepared for their riding test with a squeaky clean horse and no intervention. Instructors are not allowed in the barns with teams.
"You must know what you should be doing and have to be quick," Elizabeth said.
The teams are also judged on dressage, a form of precision riding that enhances the horse's natural movement, said instructor Evie Tumlin, owner of Cedar Wind Farm. In dressage, communication between horse and rider is intense and takes years of training to master.
"Olympic riders come through the U.S. Pony Club system," Tumlin said. "It teaches discipline, and you have the ability to be safe and help others with safety."
Gabby Withrow, 10, who earned ninth place overall with her team, has dreamed of riding her own horse for as long as she can remember. Her pint-sized body maneuvers around huge horses with ease.
"You develop a bond with the horse," Alexa said, marvelling at the connection between herself and her horse, Nike. Both she and Karen have Olympic dressage dreams. And Alexa's little sister, Mia, finds support and reinforcement for her new skills at Cedar Wind with the older girls.
"These kids started training when they were 8, riding once or twice a week during the school year and for long periods, five days a week during the summer," Tumlin said. "They were fabulous."
Piper Dunn:
From Carnegie Hall to Top Gun
Piper Dunn sang in Carnegie Hall and competed as a cheerleader, but she feels most at home when she's training as an ROTC cadet. In a video shot this summer at ROTC
leadership school in Illinois (shown above as a still), she wears an Air Force hat, but the 15-year-old has her sights on the U.S. Naval Academy.
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She's 5-feet, 1-inch and 97 pounds, a tiny size- 0 with laser focus and determination. Piper Dunn, 15, has the tactics plotted in her mind and is now executing her plan to get to the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md.
"I've never dreamed of anything else," said Piper, a sophomore at Lafayette High School who aspires to be a Navy pilot. "They have structure, organization, and they don't tolerate anyone without discipline."
Piper returned in June from Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) Summer Leadership School at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois.
Separated from everyone she knew, she bonded with her new team through obstacle courses, physical training and sports.
They worked for a week from 5:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. in 100-degree heat. And she loved it.
"She's tenacious like a bulldog," said MSgt. Jeffrey Bender, one of her ROTC instructors at Lafayette High School. "She leads a very structured life, knows how to prioritize and keeps things in perspective."
A trained competitive cheerleader for the last several years, she gave it up to concentrate on Lafayette's ROTC program.
When the jungle face paint and military low ground crawls are on, the pom-poms are in the closet, she said.
"She thinks of something she wants to do and figures out how to do it," said Piper's mother, Cindy.
Piper loves international traveling and understanding different cultures. She's made three mission trips to Mexico, helping to build a church and an orphanage, and last year she took an educational Holocaust tour of Europe.
This summer includes a scheduled trip to Australia for three weeks as a People to People Ambassador, a nominated position. The application process included an interview and letters of recommendation, all good prerequisites for the would-be naval cadet.
Annapolis doesn't sound like much of a stretch for the overachieving Piper, who performed at Carnegie Hall at age 13, when she sang the Mozart Requiem in Latin with college students from Southwest Mississippi Community College.
Piper has competed on the swim team and won academic awards. She hopes to stick the landing of her 4.0 GPA for the next several years.
Even with that impressive list of personal accomplishments, Piper concentrates on what's important.
"If I can defend my country and do my best to help other people, that is what matters," she said.
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