She got interested in the ax-throwing competitions first. Now, she’s a successful log roller. She said, “I think I have a natural ability of balance.”
Faith wasn’t always this good. “When I first started, I used to be really bad at it,” she said.
That was about a year ago.
After a lot of practice, Faith, a senior at Sabin-Schellenberg, started getting recognized in a sport traditionally dominated by boys.
Her instructor, Katelin Walker, said, “We wanted faith to have the opportunity to be competitive.” She saw Faith getting pushback at the competitions.
Faith said, “He said, ‘Do you know what you’re doing?’ And then he said, ‘What is this some transgender event now?’ In front of everybody, industry workers, parents, other students. I didn’t respond directly to him. I said, ‘Let’s roll.’ Pulled my hair out of my pony tail and started rolling and I placed 2nd.”
Katelin said, “It brought a lot of frustration to myself and to our entire timber sports team, who felt like one of our own had been targeted.”
They brought their concerns to state officials with the department of education.
One official confirmed, as of this week, all competitions for the forestry events will now include all genders.
Katelin said, “Even though there’s been ups downs. We’ve been angry. We’ve been sad, at the end of the day. This is a huge win for us and for women in our industry.”
Reporter Katherine Kisiel asked Faith, “What do you want to tell the other young girls, young women or boys or whoever in these situations where they’re being told they shouldn’t be doing something. What do you want to tell them?”
“You can,” Faith responded. “It might feel like there’s a world stopping you, but you can. You need to break through those barriers. There are people there for you. You need to go talk to them. you need to get your voice out there, break those barriers and go do it.”
Faith’s twin sister, Grace, also competes. She’s good at spur climbing.
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