By HAYLEE BATES, Staff Reporter
Nine players stormed the diamond in the hope of staying on the path to their goal: becoming state champions.
Chesnei Thomas stood in the outfield waiting for the first pitch. Thoughts bombarded her mind as the tension set in, but one thought brought her worries to rest: this is what her team had worked for all year. The conclusion of this game would decide which team would advance to the next level and which team would be sent home with its dream cut short.
Fort Cobb-Broxton High School and Sterling High School were competing in the fast pitch regional finals. The odds were against Sterling, as Fort Cobb-Broxton already had a number of state championships under its belt from previous years and was looking for a chance to add to its list.
“Looking back this is my favorite high school sports story,” Thomas said, as she reminisced on her love for sports that brought her to Northwestern Oklahoma State University and eventually Alva High School.
At the conclusion of the seventh inning, Sterling managed to hold Fort Cobb-Broxton off to secure the win and its place in the state tournament. Sterling then made it through the next level of tournament play to the championship. Although the team fell short that game, it walked away as the 2002 Class A Oklahoma state runner-up.
“My hometown was really big into fast pitch softball, and for someone that did not grow up playing fast pitch all my work paid off,” Thomas said. “It was the first time that we got to go to the state tournament in about 20 years.”
Thomas and her team helped set a new standard for Sterling fast pitch softball. After their battle during the state tournament in 2002, Sterling has made it to state every year except for two.
“It’s really cool to know that we started that tradition again, and to see the underclassmen go on and keep it going has been really neat,” Thomas said.
This is only one of the experiences that helped drive Thomas’ love for sports to a new level. Her father was a high school boys basketball coach, and he sparked her interest of basketball at an early age.
“It was never a question of whether I would play basketball,” she said. “With my dad being a coach, I just always knew I would play. I loved to be in the gym, and I loved to be around the high school kids.”
Although Thomas’ father was a coach, she was a fortunate coach’s kid because she only had to move twice throughout her time as a student.
“There were times and opportunities that my dad had to coach somewhere else, but I always had a big say in where we lived,” she said. “That’s something that I always appreciated because not many coach’s’ kids could say that.”
Thomas lived in Kremlin, and before she started kindergarten, her family moved to Fairview where her father accepted a coaching position for the boys basketball team. Her final move was to Sterling where she later graduated.
Throughout her time as a student, Thomas played a number of sports that helped mold her competitive nature, including fast pitch softball, slow pitch softball, basketball and cheerleading.
“We grew up in a coaching family, so I think that it was just implanted into our heads to be competitive,” said Baylei Zehr, assistant coach for the Alva girl’s basketball team and Thomas’ younger sister. “One time we were in a fight, and I told her to bring it, and she chased me through the entire house until I was cornered. That’s the last time I would tell her to bring it again.”
After competing in high school sports, Thomas went on to cheer at the collegiate level for four years at Northwestern Oklahoma State University. Teammates and colleagues remember Thomas having a competitive nature throughout college and in the workplace.
“She was always competitive, not in a selfish way, but she was always competitive in a way that she wanted what was best for the group,” said Kaylyn Hansen, Northwestern director of student life and counseling and former teammate and colleague of Thomas. “When she was a senior on our cheer team, she always was competitive and wanted us to bond as a group so we could do well out on the floor and could perform better.”
Even after Thomas made the cheer squad at Northwestern, she was involved in a number of campus leadership roles, clubs and organizations, including Alpha Sigma Alpha, Ranger Connection, NWTV7, Ranger recruitment and Leaders of Northwestern.
“My first year of college I wanted to be involved in a lot of things to see what I liked and what I didn’t like,” Thomas said.
Throughout her busy undergraduate years at Northwestern, Thomas met a lot of people, and one of those people was her husband, Derrick Thomas. After the two began dating toward the end of their undergraduate years, things began changing for the better in Thomas’ life.
“Whenever things clicked and we started dating, each day he made me a little bit better than I had been the day before,” Thomas said. “Derrick is the one that helped show me what my faith really looked like and helped me act on my faith more and more each day.”
Thomas’ faith in God has played a major role in her life.
“I was saved at a young age, and I had family members that made sure I knew what it meant to be saved and to have a relationship with God,” she said. “There are so many things that I have been through in my life, and I know that if I didn’t have my faith in God I wouldn’t have been able to make it through them.”
The couple now serves as youth pastors at the First Baptist Church in Alva. Thomas’ husband was already the youth pastor at the First Baptist Church when the two began dating in college.
“I didn’t decided to be a youth pastor; I just happened to start dating a boy that was already a pastor,” she said. “Never in a million years would I ever have thought that I would be married to someone that was employed by a church or in ministry. In my mind I was going to marry a coach because that’s what we did, and I was going to be a really good coach’s wife because I watched my mom be such a great wife for my dad.”
The two have been youth pastors together for nine years, and throughout their journey, Thomas has seen a number of successes and trials.
“I do not always feel equipped to be a youth minister’s wife, especially when Derrick and I first started dating,” Thomas said. “I always felt that I couldn’t be a minister’s wife because I am flawed, so at first I let Satan really eat at me with stuff like that. Now I have figured out that I do have a purpose, and I do have reason to serve in the church that we are a part of.”
Thomas and her husband have two different personalities to offer the youth group at the First Baptist Church.
“Derrick is more of the biblical foundation for the youth, which I think is neat because so many times in America right now, it’s the woman that has to be the biblical foundation in the family,” Thomas said. “Since Derrick does so well in that aspect, at youth I can be the advice girl. I can be the person that can help the youth that are struggling, and I am the person that can take real life situations and apply it to what Derrick is teaching.”
Throughout Thomas’ time in the youth, she has been able to carry out her calling for impacting the lives of kids. She is also able to do that through her time at Northwestern and now at the Alva High School.
“Growing up, I always thought that I would become a teacher,” she said. “When I was working in the recruitment office, I just remember thinking that kids in high school need someone in their corner, and while I was working in youth ministry I kept going back to it. I never acted on it until later in my career at Northwestern.”
Thomas was able to impact the lives of Northwestern students through the positions that she held on campus.
“There are so many people on this campus and so many that she doesn’t even realize that would say they are here because of her or that they stayed here because of her,” said Paige Fischer, Northwestern director of recruitment and former colleague of Thomas.
The way that she impacted students and other employees on campus allowed Thomas to be remembered for two things during both chapters of her life at Northwestern: a smile and a helping hand.
“She was charismatic yet compassionate,” said Tatum Radcliff, Northwestern housing secretary and former colleague of Thomas. “When she started talking, everyone would turn their head and listen because you could hear her voice in a room, but when she spoke up it was always out of compassion. Those are two things that I think when put together are a really powerful thing.”