NICKERSON – Some things in Ava Jones’ life were always meant to be.
 
On Saturday, Jones, a Nickerson High School senior, will take the graduation stage as valedictorian. She’ll introduce USD 309 board members and administrators, including her mother, Amy, an assistant superintendent.
 
Jones will share a speech she crafted with input from her mom and Nickerson principal Rick Blosser. And eventually, Amy will present her middle child and only daughter with a diploma.
 
“It’ll be short and sweet because I’ll want to get out of there and everybody else will want to get out of there,” said Ava Jones, the Capitol Federal® True Blue® Student of the Week. “I could spend countless hours thanking everybody for what they’ve done for me. But it’s not my day. It’s everybody’s day.”

 
No day is taken for granted by the Jones family. Certainly not since the evening of July 5, 2022, when four of the five family members were struck by a vehicle while walking on a sidewalk in downtown Louisville, Kentucky. The Joneses were in Louisville for Ava’s AAU basketball tournament.
 
Trey Jones, Amy’s husband of 21 years and father to Ava, her older brother, Hunter, and younger brother, Creek, died from his injuries two days later. A standout athlete at Nickerson in the late-1990s, Trey was the track and field coach and a woodworking teacher at his alma mater.
 
While Creek, now 11, was treated for minor cuts and scrapes, Amy and Ava sustained critical injuries that have required multiple surgeries. Hunter, a student-athlete at Pittsburg State, was not with the family at the time of the crash.
 
The driver of the vehicle, Michael Hurley, faced multiple charges, including one count of murder. Police said the Lexington, Indiana, native admitted to taking hydrocodone before the incident.
 
The Joneses’ emotional and physical healing continues 10 months later. For Ava, an all-state basketball and volleyball player, and Class 4A girls high jump champion two years ago, black knee braces on both legs and slowed speech from the traumatic brain injury (TBI) she sustained are evidence of a young woman on a convalescent journey.
 
Amy and Ava Jones returned home from Louisville in mid-August, and Ava attended the first classes of her senior year on Oct. 4.
 
“It’s gotten more normal,” Jones said. “After volleyball and basketball passed, it just started to feel more normal. And Dad’s not here to coach, so it’s actually been normal for me not doing track because he’s not coaching.
 
“The difference has been the walking. Just having knee surgeries and not being able to walk at times and having to rely on people to drive me to school, that’s been a big difference. And then me not playing sports is different.”
 
Sports are a driving force in the recovery process for Jones, a 4.0 student. Two days prior to the life-altering events in Louisville, Jones, an ESPN top-100 basketball recruit, committed to play at the University of Iowa after originally pledging to Arizona State.
 
Iowa women’s coach Lisa Bluder said shortly after Jones was injured that the Hawkeyes would honor their scholarship offer to the 6-foot-2 Panther standout, who averaged 20.8 points and 15.4 rebounds as a junior.
 
“It is hard to stay positive when you have so many surgeries and you’re down, and you’ve lost everything your senior year that you looked forward to,” Amy Jones said. “But the fact that she’ll be able to go to Iowa and hopefully play, or at least be able to be part of the team, has been very motivating.”
 
Jones posted a series of senior pictures on her Instagram account shortly after returning to school in late October. Her caption read, “Senior year is different, but it’s still senior Sunday”. From the outpouring of support for her and her family to the juggling of medical and academic obligations, Jones’ words have been spot on.
 
Almost immediately after the incident, grassroots fundraisers for the Jones family began across Kansas. A Facebook page established to provide updates on the family has attracted more than 20,000 followers.
 
“It’s made me feel good,” Jones said. “I’m very grateful that they care. It just makes me want to do better things. I don’t want to sit around and throw away all this work that I’ve done.”
 
Jones’ rehabilitation began with her grandmother, Mary Honeck, transporting her to Wichita three times a week for occupational and physical therapy sessions. After returning to school, she attended classes in the morning and therapy in Hutchinson in the afternoons.
 
Jones completed most of her academic heavy lifting prior to her senior year, Blosser said. She finished classes Wednesday with the other Nickerson seniors with English and government as part of her part-time schedule.
 
“Ava’s a great kid, really positive and extremely hard-working,” Blosser said. “We just asked her to do what she could do. We got her into classes as quick as we could, and a lot of it was just auditing it so she could be in the classroom and get the information.”
 
Jones said the TBI presented her with unprecedented challenges.
 
“I’ve just had to be OK with asking for help more than I used to,” she said. “In government, which I was taking this semester, I had to ask one of my friends to write notes for me to help because I couldn’t write them.”
 
The highlights of Jones’ senior year have run parallel to the efforts to restore her health. On Nov. 9, she signed her national letter of intent with Iowa in a ceremony at the high school. Two weeks later, Dr. Scott Adrian performed the first of a trio of surgical procedures on Jones in Wichita, repairing all of the ligaments and both menisci in her right knee.

 
On Jan. 10, Jones suited up for the Panthers one last time and scored the game's first basket seconds after the opening tip against Halstead. Amy Jones watched from the scorer’s table, where she was keeping the scorebook. A second round of surgery to repair Ava's left leg followed two weeks later, and a final round occurred in late April.
 
“Signing day was something I’ve always dreamed of,” Jones said. “And then the Halstead game, I was really grateful they let me do that. There have just been so many people helping me to get here.
 
“I wouldn’t have been able to get to this point if I didn’t have somebody who could push me to every class or drive me to school or get lunch for me every day when I couldn’t.”
 
Jones, who is still awaiting shoulder surgery, begins summer school at Iowa in mid-June. She has communicated weekly with Hawkeye players, particularly Sydney Affolter and Jada Gyamfi. Jones traveled to Dallas to watch her future teammates play in the Final Four, where they fell to LSU in the national title game.
 
“I think about going to Iowa, I think about the future,” said Jones, who expects to redshirt next season while she continues to heal. “Going to the Final Four to watch Iowa, I was like, ‘Hopefully, that will be me playing in that someday.’
 
“I don’t really sit here and dwell on what I can’t control. I can control coming back and being stronger than ever.”
 
But first, Jones will take part in a graduation ceremony on Saturday that is sure to be filled with emotion. Trey Jones was Ava’s friend, she said, adding, “I was his only daughter, so I really miss having that connection.”
 
“I think it will be really tough because of course Trey won’t be there to watch, so that’s going to be really difficult,” Amy Jones said. “But it is amazing how hard Ava has worked to get where she is – not just this year, but the last three years before this. She’s been a great student and obviously a good athlete.
 
“She’s getting what she deserved all along despite the accident. So I hope people aren’t thinking it’s just a handout for her, because she did put in all the work and the time to earn what she’s getting.”