Potomac News/MJM Female Scholar-Athlete of the
Year
By ROBERT DASKI
rdaski@potomacnews.com
Friday, June 15, 2007
Even Brittni Dixon-Smith cannot believe what
she did in high school.
"I told [my mom], 'I don't know how I spent
the last three years going to bed at one o'clock in the
morning every day doing homework and all these activities.
I just don't know how I did it for three years,'" Dixon-Smith
said.
"Now I look back on it and I'm like, 'Thank
God it is coming to an end.' But it was all worth it.
Everything I did I got something out of."
You'll understand the meaning of Dixon-Smith's
conversation with her mother when you look at the activities
in which the Woodbridge senior has been associated.
Athletically, she participates in volleyball,
basketball and track & field. Her track honors include
winning the long jump at the 2006 Group AAA outdoor state
track meet. Dixon-Smith also placed 14th in the long
jump in the junior division of the 2006 USA Outdoor Track & Field
championships.
She is president of Woodbridge's Student Council
Association, president of the school's BETA Club and
vice president of the French Honor Society.
She has been an advocate for breast cancer research
by giving several speeches to state and national audiences
and been in Relay for Life and breast cancer walks to
raise money.
She serves as a French tutor.
She also helped Fairfax County flood and Hurricane
Katrina victims by collecting toiletries and assisting
Fairfax victims with removing personal property from
their homes.
Those close to Dixon-Smith know the effort she
puts in to things.
"She has this certain thing about her where
she strives for excellence," Dixon-Smith's guidance
counselor and academic advisor Leah Byrd said. "She's
very involved in academics, very involved in sports and
things around the school. She wants to be involved in
those things and she wants to be a leader in those activities."
Dixon-Smith refuses to settle for anything less
than being the best with all she is involved with. She
is so focused on being a perfectionist that when she
first enrolled at Woodbridge, Byrd said Dixon-Smith insisted
on filling out her safety and past school history forms
herself so they could be turned in as neatly as possible.
"I like to be the best," she said. "I
don't like to be the one that settles for that B or that
C. I get upset about it and I'll be competitive with
it. Everything with me is a competitive thing. Grades,
sports, everything."
Dixon-Smith is also successful because she is
ambitious, though she sets reachable goals.
"The goals she sets are high but also attainable," Byrd
said. "She's also not unrealistic. She always said
she wanted to go to Harvard, but she knew Stanford was
better for her. I'm impressed with the realistic goals
she sets."
She attributes her success to her mother, Anita
Dixon, a colonel in the United States army who has raised
Brittni as a single parent.
Dixon-Smith was born in San Francisco, but moved
with Anita to Woodbridge, when she was two. She then
moved to Alaska at age 13 and returned to Prince William
County for her sophomore year of high school.
Even in Alaska, Dixon-Smith took part in school
activities. She was freshman class president at Lathrop
High School, ran track, a sport in which was all-state
in the 100-meter dash, 200, 4x100 and 4x200, and played
basketball.
The only time Brittni and Anita have ever been
apart was after Anita was deployed to Bosnia and Brittni
stayed with Anita's mother.
They've always been close and Anita has tried
to attend Brittni's events, even if she was late due
to fulfilling her job commitments.
"I'd tell her, 'I'll be there, but I'll be
there late,'" Anita said.
"When she won [the long jump] last year,
I was in France and my mother always filled the void
when I couldn't be there. Brittni appreciated that from
my mother as well."
In the fall, Brittni and Anita will again be apart
as Brittni attends Stanford. But Brittni and Anita will
see each other when Brittni returns home for Thanksgiving
and Christmas break.
"Her coach said she can come home on holidays," Anita
said. "We'll be looking forward to that. She's not
leaving me forever."
Dixon-Smith will do the long jump at Stanford
on a partial scholarship and has earned scholarships
from the Lake Ridge Lions Club ($2,500), Friends Senior
Scholarship ($1,000), Lake Ridge Women's Club ($1,000),
JCI Senate ($1,000), Army Officers Wives Club of Greater
Washington ($2,000), Old Dominion Linx ($2,500) and Virginia
Junior Miss ($450) to go toward paying for the other
half of her tuition.
Dixon-Smith is undecided on her major, but is
leaning toward majoring in international relations or
pre-med. She is hoping to have a career in politics.
She will have a lot to be remembered for. Byrd,
a former long jumper at Lake Braddock Secondary in Burke,
will remember Dixon-Smith for her commitment to track.
"I joke with her about track and tell her
she has to still beat my long jump record," Byrd
said.
|
