Brazen tenacity has driven athletes to struggle for millennia to perfect a technique combining speed, strength, agility and momentum in an effort to launch them defiantly into the air in hope of clearing a simple metal bar.

While most people may envision the pole vault as images of international athletes on the Olympic stage, few would stop to think that one of the most proficient vaulters in the western states shares the same breezeways and classrooms as they.

Jessie Gallaher, the defending NWAACC pole-vaulting champion doesn’t just share these classrooms, she is dominating academically as she is athletically, as is demonstrated by her 3.96 GPA.

Gallaher credits much of her success in school to being involved in sports and said her athletic accomplishments can be partially credited to her high school track coach. “Without him, I wouldn’t be a pole-vaulter,” said Gallaher. She continued that she has turned to him on occasion when seeking advice, even after graduating from Reynolds High School.

Of course Gallaher isn’t without a little superstition when accrediting her success. “I have to know how the (MHCC) baseball team is doing.” She said that how she fairs seems to mirror the baseball teams success and failure. She continued that she goes to all the games and practices and follows the players very closely.

Baseball isn’t the only sport that Gallaher follows, you can usually find her somewhere around the gym if she’s not in class. According to her, being around the constant activity that typifies the gymnasium helps the focus of her studies. “If things are too quiet, I have a harder time concentrating.”

Besides following the baseball team, Gallaher said that she usually listens to a special compilation CD before competitions. According to her, the music varies from Christian music to punk rock, “anything that’s upbeat.”

Perhaps one of her most recognizable trademark may have been born more out of necessity than ritual. “My hair is so long that as soon as I start practicing, or when I’m in competition, it has to go into braids. If just for my own personal safety.”

After MHCC, Gallaher said that she is definitely going to continue her education, though she is unsure as to where. She said that she’s been speaking with a few different schools and is looking to go somewhere that will be able to offer strong athletic and academic programs.

Outside of school, Gallaher is applying her ambition and work ethic professionally as she has begun investing in real estate. “I’ve been working since I was 12 and the idea of wasting money is not acceptable.” That is what brought her to investing, realizing the long-term benefit of buying a home, as opposed to dumping money into renting someone else’s property.

Gallaher said that you have to look at academics as just facts and information, what’s important is applying the information you’re given. You learn that through life experience, and sports have not only helped with her life experience, but has also “served as a vent that’s kept me sane.”