BUFFALO, Mo. — One look at Shelby Jackson’s letterman jacket gives you a glimpse of Miss Accomplishments.
Just about every inch has been exhausted with patches that run the gamut: cross country, track, wrestling, and her one pageant appearance.
You could say it went well.
"This girl walked up and asked if I wanted to sign up for Miss Dallas County. I told her no, that it wasn’t really my thing,” Jackson said. "A bunch of girls I was sitting with said: ‘Why would you sign up? You’re not going to win anyway.’ I turned to the girl at the sign-up page and told her to put my name down.”
She won, and her mom made sure to fit it onto her jacket.
"I had full bruises on my body from wrestling during some of it. The judges saw it and were really confused.”
Coming out for wrestling, like the 2015 Miss Dallas County competition, was spurned by a simple source of motivation: someone told her she couldn’t do it.
The daughter of a military family, Jackson has always been naturally competitive. When she moved to Buffalo in eighth grade, her new peers, including her eventual track and cross country coach, quickly took notice.
"I remember watching her come in and she had these shoes that were completely torn up,” Buffalo coach Jennifer Smith said. "I looked at her and said: ‘Why do you have holes?’ She said ever time she got in trouble, her mom would make her go out and run a mile.”
It was second nature to Jackson, and it’s her first love.
"I told her to come out for track and she did. She blew out the competition in eighth grade, and I thought okay, we have something here.”
Jackson justified Smith’s prediction, becoming a state qualifier in both cross country and state. She broke the school record in the 3200 meter dash as a sophomore and took 11th at state. She then broke the record two more times as a junior, and it seemed a foregone conclusion that she would make it back to Jefferson City.
That was until the unexpected struck at districts.
"I had just run the mile and my stomach was hurting,” Jackson aid. "I couldn’t move. They took me to the trainer and it turned out I was bleeding and having kidney problems.”
An infection kept her from making it out of districts in the 3200, but she did qualify in the 1600. She missed the state cut at sectionals despite running personal record in the mile.
"I start tearing up when I think about it because all the hard work she put in last year, I know it was so hard to walk away and not qualify in the one event we thought was a shoe-in,” Smith said.
The start of that season wasn’t the smoothest either, given the broken collarbone Jackson had suffered while wrestling. She had been paired up to face a teammate during a mid-season meet and failed to brace properly for a half nelson 16 seconds in the match.
"Immediately after that, I walked up to my coach and said: ‘I think I pulled a muscle.’ He asked if I could still wrestle, and I said: ‘You know I can,” she said.
Jackson went out and won her next match, and didn’t even realize the severity of the injuries until doing pushups the next day at practice.
And, what became of that teammate who performed the fateful move?
"It was my best friend and eventually my boyfriend. Great relationship starter there, right?”
Injuries prevented Jackson from finishing any of her three years of wrestling, but she didn’t mind. She just wanted to try.
"It frustrates the heck out of me, I’ll be honest,” Smith said. "Most runners just train the whole offseason, whereas Shelby is in the weight room or wherever her wrestling practice is. Every time she comes up I’m so nervous. You can’t tell her not to do these things because she does really well."
Now a senior, she already placed 16th in the Class 3 State Cross Country Championships this past fall. Another shot at state is on the horizon before Jackson heads to Missouri Southern to run.
`"It’s really stressful and nerve racking, but I know as long as I push myself as hard as I can, there’s going to be nothing that stops me other than me,” she said.
If nothing else, Smith’s lone girls state qualifier thus far has set the bar.
"Shelby’s nothing but a surprise. Every day, what she can do, what she invests herself in… she touches it and I feel like she’s been blessed,” she said. "She has the ability to conquer things and attack them head on like someone I’ve never seen."
