Losing father forced growth early on for Riverside teen

It’s fair to say that Felicia Claxton, 17, grew up quickly.

When she was a child, her dad was diagnosed with heart failure and put on the waiting list for a donor heart. He was in the hospital a lot, and Claxton spent a lot of time there with him. A donor heart never became available, and Claxton was there when her dad died. She was 10 years old.

“I guess after that it was like I had a new role,” said Claxton, who’s graduating this year from Riverside High School.

Her brother was 4 years old at the time, and Claxton quickly took on a lot of responsibility at home.

“It was very hard watching my dad pass,” Claxton said. “From then on I helped my mom with my brother. It’s made me more responsible. I never procrastinate.”

She’s maintained a 3.88 grade-point average, and she’s always held a job.

For a while she worked 35 hours a week at Wendy’s, while she was going to school, to save up for a car. She bought the car and she has enough money left over to last until college starts this fall.

“It was a lot. But if I wanted a car it was what I had to do,” Claxton said. “I felt bad asking my mom for money for gas or whatever it was.”

In school, her favorite classes are history and math.

“I love math because you really have to think about it,” Claxton said. “And it’s always just come to me.”

She’s enrolling at Eastern Washington University this fall and plans to study nursing and Spanish.

In her free time, she likes to go dirt biking – a skill she taught her brother – and she likes to go hunting, although in four years she has yet to bring home a deer or any other trophy.

“My family makes fun of me because I shoot at animals but I can’t hit,” said Claxton, laughing. “They say I can spend a whole case of ammunition on the same deer and still not hit it.”

Mostly, she said, she’s an outdoorsy kind of person, and she loves to go camping and spending time outside.