Hillary Jones.

It's a thousand wonders how Hillary and I are even friends. Our relationship started out in elementary school with Hillary refusing to play with me and Megan on the Shannon Elementary playground followed by her making fun of my multi-colored polished fingernails. I eventually figured out how to take her sarcasm, and we became good friends. We also grew up together in the same youth group at Brewer Baptist Church. Actually, the first time I ever visited Brewer was because Hillary invited me when I was in the 4th grade. Soon after that, my family joined Brewer church, which has turned out to have a tremendous impact on my twenty-three year old life. The Good Lord knows He's seen us through some of the crazy things we've done as the Brewer Baptist youth group, and most of those memories include Hillary Jones. We've eaten pickled pigs feet for BBC's FearFactor, jumped off bridges into rushing river water in Eastern Tennessee, and gotten in big trouble for sneaking out late at night at GBA church camp before Hurricane Katrina blew it away. Hillary was there during the only major car accident I've ever been in when we flipped the church van down the hill… also in Eastern Tennessee. All twenty-or-so of us squeezed together in one fifteen-passenger van for the rest of that week. Those youth group days are honestly some of my fondest memories thus far in life. Hillary and I are also tennis buddies. We've endured running in cold February afternoons at Shannon Park and foot drills in the hottest part of the Mississippi summers. We've been to Jackson for the state tennis tournament at least four times, even if it was just as "hamburger eaters" as Coach Christian called the players that didn't qualify for the state tournament and just ate the free meals paid for by the tennis boosters. To be honest, Hillary probably qualified for state, and I didn't, but we were there together nonetheless.  Hillary and I have been through some seriously bad times in life together, and also celebrated some really good ones together. She 

is one of my oldest and closest friends.