The person Jessica Boddie most admires is her grandmother, Carol Silas, a cancer survivor. That fact is especially important to Jessica on the week of Chilton County’s Relay for Life.

“She’s really strong, and she is still active,” Jessica said of her grandmother.

Jessica stays very active herself competing in cheerleading competitions with the Birmingham-based United Wolfpack. She started cheering at age 7 and has won numerous awards.

“I just like getting to go around to different states and cheer at the competitions,” she said.

The Clanton Middle School eighth grader, whose favorite subject is math, aspires to attend the University of Alabama at Birmingham and study medicine to become a pediatrician.

“I just like little kids,” she said.

Jessica’s most memorable school project was a boat she built in Ms. Espenan’s history class. The boat had to be constructed from a plastic bag, strings, pipe cleaners, popsicle sticks and foil. When complete, it had to carry an object while floating on water.

In her spare time, Jessica likes to go to the movies with her friends.

“Twilight,” she said when asked her favorite film.

Jessica is the daughter of Steve and Leigh-Ann Boddie and has an older sister, Kayla.