Graduating
senior's outstanding career
at EOU has many people wondering:
How
does she do it?
Published: June 10, 2004
By Pierre LaBossiére, Observer Staff Writer
 |
| Jayne
Leigh Thomas |
She's a digger, a hurler, a linguist, a
volunteer and an academic. And her career is just starting.
She also insists she gets enough sleep.
Eastern Oregon University's Jayne-Leigh
Thomas is graduating this weekend with dual degrees in
anthropology/sociology and liberal studies.
She's graduating Summa Cum Laude with a
cumulative grade point average of 3.92. Thomas, a Rhodes Scholar
candidate, was picked to be the commencement speaker during graduation
ceremonies. And Thomas isn't even that nervous
about getting up in front of her classmates and giving the speech.
"I'm so excited. I've never given a
speech of this magnitude before," she said. "I think I'll be fine."
Thomas' lists of accomplishments is
impressive, to say the least. They have to be listed to be
appreciated:
- Four years, a pitcher on Eastern
women's softball team. She won 31 games in her college career and
had a career winning percentage of .534.
- Twice an NAIA Academic All-American.
- The Cascade Conference Female
Scholar-Athlete of the Year.
- Eastern Oregon's Ragsdale Female
Scholar-Athlete of the Year.
- An NAIA LeRoy Walker Sportsmanship
Award finalist.
- One of 60 Phi Kappa Phi Fellowship
winners nationwide.
- A geology and Spanish tutor.
- An EOU ambassador and freshman
orientation counselor.
- A volunteer for the Blue Mountain
Humane Association.
Thomas, the daughter of Jayne Beebe of
Selah, Wash., and Stan Thomas of Seattle, also volunteers for a local
elderly woman, helped with the La Grande playground project, and took
time off to work on dual research and thesis projects in Bolivia last
summer.
In the midst of all these activities,
Thomas, who hails from Selah and goes by the nickname "Selah" from her
teammates, also taught herself how to throw a deadly change-up. Some
Major League pitchers would kill to be able to throw a change-up. It
is a difficult pitch to learn and even more difficult to throw for
strikes. Thomas spent hours perfecting a devil's-horn grip on the ball
to develop this pitch.
"I knew I wasn't going to fool anyone
in college without it, so I started working with it. My team hates it
when I throw it (during practice)," she said.
If she has her way (and she probably
will) Thomas will be known as Dr. Thomas within a few years. She plans
to get a doctorate in archeology after graduating from Eastern.
When asked if she thinks she is a
workaholic, Thomas replies, "The way I live my life is normal to me. I
don't think I could live any other way.
"I get asked quite frequently, How do I
do it? When do I sleep?" Thomas said.
Thomas admitted that once in a while
she might start feeling stressed out, but she credits a strong support
system from her family and fellow students.
"My friends help keep me in line," she
said.
"Isn't she amazing?" said Dixie Lund,
who recently served as EOU's interim president. "She has it all. She's
an amazing young woman. She's got beauty, brains and brawn.
"She's a beautiful woman inside and
out."
Lund thinks Thomas represents the best
of the kind of students who attend EOU.
Her softball coach, Anji Weissenfluh,
called her "a tremendous young lady."
Weissenfluh said that she not only was
a good softball player for Eastern, she was a team leader, and the
kind of person, "people just gravitate toward."
Weissenfluh also said there was much
more to Thomas than softball.
"If she only played softball, she'd be
bored," Weissenfluh said.
Thomas had planned on attending Simon
Fraser University in Burnaby, B.C., to get her master's and doctorate
degrees. However, she might attend the University of Oregon or
Washington State University for her graduate studies.
Thomas has had to overcome obstacles.
One was a traffic accident earlier this year that left her with
injuries she had to deal with all season long during softball.
However, she's also had some incredible
luck. Several years ago during a softball road trip to Southern
California, she managed to get on "The Price is Right" TV game show
and won a $20,000 boat.
For all of her interests, Thomas' main
love is archeology. She participated in a forestry anthropology
program in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, last summer in part so she could also
do a thesis on pre-Inca archeology at El Fuerte (The Fort) in
Samaipata, Bolivia.
This summer, she is participating in a
University of Oregon archeology field study in southern Idaho. What
attracted her to archeology? "I love playing in dirt," she said.
Thomas also said she enjoys the
outdoors and making discoveries about ancient cultures.
Thomas has stared down .400 hitters and
taken on a class workload that would send most college students
running screaming out the door toward the nearest espresso bar.
However, she does admit to being intimidated by two things.
The first was the male-dominated
culture of Bolivia.
She explained that as a tall, blue-eyed
woman, a lot of attention was paid to her. She even had some women in
Bolivia trying to get her to take children back with her to America.
"It was really hard for me because I
stood out," she said. She said her blue eyes were considered exotic in
Bolivia.
The other thing that intimidates her?
Leaving EOU.
Thomas explained that she has had the
time of her life at Eastern, and a part of her is dreading the idea of
leaving.
"I get butterflies in my stomach
thinking about it. Eastern is my home," she said. "I don't think I'm
ready to leave, but I don't have a choice. That's kind of scary."
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