Pocahontas County High School senior Makeia Jonese recently received an academic scholarship to attend Davis & Elkins College and play soccer as a Lady Senator.
Trading her maroon and gold for the red and white of the Senators, Jonese is excited to join the successful team for the 2014-2015 season.
“D&E is a really great school and they offer a lot to the students there,” she said. “I was first contacted by the coach my junior year and I met the girls. I really liked the team. It’s a really close team and they have a really good work ethic. It’s a very strong program. Last year, they were conference champs so I’m pretty eager to become a Lady Senator and hopefully add on to their next title.”
At this time, Jonese is still undecided on a major but says she is leaning toward a degree in exercise science.
“I did my senior mentorship at physical therapy,” she said. “I was really interested in that but I have a couple of years to decide I guess.”
Last year, Jonese suffered an injury that almost sidelined her.
“Last basketball season, I kept having pain, and we didn’t know what was going on,” she said. “I went and got an MRI and they actually found a tumor in my tibia. They [said] we should probably have surgery to take it out and make sure it’s not cancerous or anything like that but they said to get to it, they’d have to drill through the bone, which would ultimately break it. They said with me being so young, they didn’t want to do that. I went to physical therapy and luckily it’s just on the gym floor [that it bothers me]. During soccer, it doesn’t.”
Along with playing soccer at PCHS, Jonese if very involved with clubs and academic activities, including Tribe president, Spanish Club president, Project Christmas, National Honor Society and Spanish Honor Society.
Suzanne Stewart may be contacted at sastewart@pocahontastimes.com