Don't bother Bailey Lyness right now. She's busy. She must be.
She has been a key contributor in three sports throughout her time at Red Bank High School. Athletic director Susan Thurman said Lyness has been known to play the sport in season while practicing another.
She is the student body president and also heads the Red Bank huddle group of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes.
"Red Bank will miss Bailey," Thurman said. "If she had her way, she'd stay in high school. She's loved working; she's loved playing; she's loved doing. It's been fun to watch her."
Lyness was expecting her senior year to be the most treasured of times, but it began in bittersweet fashion. Her grandmother, Carolyn Fairbanks, died on Aug. 23. Lyness dedicated the rest of her Red Bank athletic career in Fairbanks' honor, then helped the Lady Lions win the Class AA state volleyball title in October.
Despite being 5-foot-2, Lyness averaged almost 17 points per game in basketball and made the Best of Preps all-city first team. She's the shortstop and leadoff batter on the softball team.
Her athletic career began before she started school. Her grandfather, Skipper Fairbanks, started the Red Bank Dixie Youth baseball program in 1962, and Lyness is the only girl to have played in it from the earliest age possible through the 13-14 age group.
"They didn't treat me any differently," she said. "That's what's helped me through high school. I played against boys growing up, and they didn't take it easy on me."
Lyness also was a pre-schooler when she began watching her brother, Drew, play basketball in a Signal Mountain recreation league. She took a few shots at halftimes back then, and her basketball career will continue this fall at Tennessee Wesleyan College in Athens.
"She was so little, but she could get it in the basket," said her mother, Wendy Lyness. "Some of the parents were saying then, 'She's going to be a basketball player.'"
Lyness didn't begin playing volleyball until sixth grade. Thurman coached volleyball at the high school at the time, and Lyness said she had wanted to play for her. She did in the ninth and 10th grades before Thurman retired from coaching and turned the program over to Christel Brooks.
At Red Bank's volleyball banquet in late 2009, Thurman announced she had wanted to do something to honor her late father, Frank Ingram, who had died on July 4. Thurman said her father had a penchant for rooting for the underdog. Lyness had drawn many comparisons to Thurman's daughter, Erin, an undersized Red Bank basketball player in the late 1990s and later at East Tennessee State University, and was chosen for an additional $500 scholarship endowment from the Ingram family.
Lyness potentially could've spent her autumns at Red Bank on the cross country team. She tries to run three miles a day anyway.
She played on the golf team in middle school but couldn't in high school if she was going to play volleyball.
"I've played golf with her," Thurman said. "She could've been a real competitor in that sport, too. You just run out of seasons."
Also in the fall Lyness was nominated by senior football player Josh Robinson to be on the homecoming court. She's a candidate for the Greater Chattanooga/Southeast Tennessee FCA chapter's athlete of the year, which will be announced at a banquet April 26. She's also up for Miss Red Bank, which will be revealed May 13 on Senior Night.
All the while she's maintained a 3.9 grade point average and is ranked ninth in her graduating class of 192.
"The things I appreciate about Bailey are her work ethic and her attitude toward school," her grandfather said. "Schoolwork is extremely important to her."
Also important to her is her family. She said she wouldn't have come as far as she has without the support from the people around her.
Thurman said one of the great things about teaching and coaching is watching someone like Lyness develop from a little girl to a young lady. Since Lyness's career ambition is to become a teacher and coach, maybe there's more of the treasured high school life in her future after all.
"I tried to get everything out of high school," Lyness said. "People told me it would go by quickly. I came in my freshman year and thought it was going to go slow. Now I'm wondering where it all went.
"I'm ready to start a new chapter in my life, but I'm not ready for high school to be over. I've loved every single second of it."