BELT — Aaliyah Gaylord shows up in all three of her sports at the Class C level, whether it's surpassing 4,000 career assists on the volleyball court, sinking a jump shot on the hardwood or recording impressive jump marks in track and field.
But as the senior from Belt High School says, none of that is as important as what she does outside of competition.
"It's probably one of the biggest things in my life that I focus on is helping others and leading the way in everything that I do," Gaylord said during basketball practice this past Wednesday. "I think it's great to get involved and put yourself out there and learn to be a leader."
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Gaylord is involved with Belt's student senate and youth leadership programs, which she said provides her joy.
"It's been so fun. This summer, we started getting together and putting together a lot of stuff for our school and like community service projects," Gaylord said.
"We do a lot of things like cleaning the grade (which leads in to the town of Belt), we clean up the bleachers after games, we put on the breakfast with Santa — that's probably my favorite thing — we get to help out with the kids and stuff."
A recent project she was a part of for her school was something fun and unique, she said.
"We made a brick wall and every student was given about five or six bricks, and they had to write compliments to anybody else in the school that they wanted," Gaylord said.
"People filled out anywhere from five to 10 bricks and then we built a whole wall, I guess, of bricks of compliments from everyone."
She and three other classmates put together this year's Belt school theme called, "Lead the legacy."
"We think that our generation needs to do a better job of creating leaders and sort of building a legacy that will last our school," Gaylord said. "And teaching the younger generations the same thing that they need to step up and be leaders."
Belt girls basketball coach Peyton Maki had high praise for Gaylord's character.
"She's just always working hard and is fun to be around," Maki said. "Just a great kid in general and the success she has isn't a surprise."
Speaking of that success that Maki mentioned, Gaylord is signed to continue playing volleyball in college at Montana State Billings.
"I'm super excited to go play there," Gaylord said.
The Belt senior is a prime example of what it means to be a leader in her community.
