Lakeside High School (Plummer-Worley): Kyleigh Wolfe has ‘angels watching over her’
If anyone has learned at an early age that life is full of ups and downs, it is Lakeside High School senior Kyleigh Wolfe.
First, the ups. Wolfe was the Class 2A Scenic Idaho Conference Girls Basketball Most Valuable Player this season for the second straight year. She averaged 23 points per game, scored 35 in the 2A District 1 championship game and was honored several times as Athlete of the Week.
“Kyleigh has constantly been working on her game and ways to improve,” her coach, Chris Dohrman, told the Coeur d’Alene Press in February. “She has become a better shooter, leader, teammate and defender.”
In the classroom, Wolfe has completed numerous college courses through Idaho Distance Learning Academy and graduated from Lakeside with honors. She will attend Spokane Community College in the fall and play basketball there, and her intention beyond that is to pursue a bachelor’s degree in business administration. “That’s a very versatile degree,” she said,” and I think that college will be an experience for me to figure out what I want to do next.”
As she looks back at her time at Lakeside, she hopes her on-court legacy is leadership.
“To me, that means being there for my teammates, not myself, working to get along with everyone and helping to make them better,” Wolfe said. “I have tried to encourage my teammates to do more than they think they can do.”
All those accomplishments have come in the face of numerous tragedies over the years. Her father, a star three-sport athlete at Lakeside, was murdered when she was an infant, and other close family and friends suffered untimely deaths throughout her childhood and adolescence.
“All that loss has been really hard,” she said, “but I’ve pushed myself for them. Through sports and school, I live my life for them. People say that I play basketball just like my dad. I lost my best friend two years ago and I didn’t know what to think or do. My family is my biggest support system, and my mom has been my biggest support through everything.
“I’ve lived in Worley my whole life,” she said, “and moving away will be hard. Everything that I’ve ever known is here, so it will be hard to leave this place. It has just started sinking in. I’m a little worried about that, but I know that I need to move forward for myself, try new things, meet new people and have new experiences. It sucks not to know about basketball, but I believe that things will work out how they’re supposed to.”
Her counselor at Lakeside, Jaclynn Watson, has the final word on Wolfe and her inspiration to succeed.
“The motivation behind Kyleigh’s athletic and academic drive comes from all the angels watching over her,” Watson said. “All these souls had such an impact on her life and continue to watch over her.”