The first thing that you’ll notice about junior Shelby Price is that she is a naturally beautiful girl with brown hair and eyes.

With time, you’ll realize that she has a kind heart, a good head on her shoulders, and she is a tough soul that will not allow anything to get in her way.

Price’s best friend, junior Mariah Lumm, has known her since the third grade and loves everything about her.

“She has always been a great friend,” Lumm said. “No matter how many times we’ve been split up during all of our grades, we still were best friends. Everyone needs a Shelby. She is sweet and also very funny.”

Price describes herself as being an introvert.

She’s not the typical teenager that dwells in the party scene. Although she enjoys keeping to herself, she still makes time for her friends and her boyfriend, junior Daimon Larkin.

Price has been a cheerleader for the majority of her school years.

She has cheered since her seventh-grade year and made her way onto the junior varsity cheer team in her freshman year of high school. Price started her first season on varsity this year.

Price is enjoying her time on varsity and believes that it has made her a better cheerleader.

“Varsity has improved me,” Price said. “When I was on j.v., I wasn’t improving as much. The new coach pushes us. I’ve been throwing tucks by myself, and I’ve never done that before.”

Cheerleading takes Price out of her comfort zone, pushing her to come out of her shell.

“Cheering, especially on varsity, has opened me up to all sorts of new people and new experiences,” Price said. “I’m definitely a very shy person, and I’m not very outgoing at all, but since I’ve started on varsity I feel like I have really been doing better at opening up and being myself.”

Her team consists of many different girls, but one in particular stuck out to Price.

“I met a freshman named Sara McNew. It’s her first year on varsity, too, so we’ve both been helping each other out with getting used to everything,” Price said. “She’s awesome.”

Price is also an aspiring cosmetologist and attends the Genessee Career Institute each day to improve her skills.

“My teacher is really nice,” Price said. “She’s a hair stylist. It’s her first year at GCI. It’s a fun class. It’s not like school.”

By attending GCI, Price has also found that she can expand her friend group outside of Kearsley.

“I’m meeting a lot of people from different schools,” Price said.

Between school, GCI, and cheer, Price has found it somewhat difficult to go about having a decent schedule.

“I wake up at 5 a.m. and have class at 6 a.m.,” Price said. “Then I go to school for third through sixth hours and have cheer at 6:30 p.m. I don’t even get home until 8:30 p.m.”

Cosmetology at GCI takes up two hours of class time. Even though she has six hours of her school day, she only has four classes at school.

Despite having fewer classes, Price has found that her junior year isn’t easy.

“Junior year is the hardest year of my life,” Price said. “It’s harder this year with only four classes than it was last year with all six. I’m honestly handling it better than I thought I would.”

Despite the difficulty of juggling all of her responsibilities, Price said Larkin always helps her to reach limits she didn’t know she could.

“Daimon always pushes me to do things he knows I can and should do, even if I don’t want to,” Price said. “He was the one who talked me into signing up for cosmetology and also cheer at the same time. He’s been helping me to balance everything and still maintain my schooling and mental state.”

Larkin knew how important these things were to Price, so he decided to help her out.

“She was really worried that she wasn’t going to cheer because of school and cosmetology,” Larkin said. “I tried to push her into cheer because I know making varsity was very important to her and without cheer I thought she would kinda be at a loss. So I help make sure she is doing good in all her classes and make sure she is keeping up with cheer, as well.”

Aside from sports and cosmetology, Price has a few lesser-known hobbies that she enjoys.

“I enjoy calligraphy and writing with brush pens,” Price said. “I just like making things and expressing words in a beautiful way.”

She has created several pieces of artwork and writing with words in flowing fonts and beautiful colors. Every one says something different and inspires those who read it to do good things and keep up their heads.

In the future, Price would like to be successful as a pediatric nurse.

“I just would love to work with children and babies,” Price said.

Just in case pediatric nursing doesn’t work out, the aspirational girl also has a back-up plan.

“My second option would be neonatal nursing. I know it would be an emotionally hard job but just being able to potentially save a child is amazing,” Price said.

College has definitely crossed Price’s mind, leaving her to choose Michigan State University as her dream college and Central Michigan University as a second-choice college.

Just like she traveled outside of her comfort zone with cheer, she would also like to travel outside of her home.

“I also want to travel and get out of Michigan,” Price said. “Maybe not even Michigan, just out of Flint. Somewhere calm and quiet, like a small town on the coast somewhere.”