Alexis Dodge, a Greenwood Community High School senior, graduates Friday night. Following a house fire her junior year, Dodge suffered from a lack of motivation in school but eventually persevered and was able to graduate.
Submitted photo
For one Greenwood Community High School student, getting her diploma Friday night will mark her perseverance following a house fire that left her with no possessions and a loss of motivation.
Nineteen-year-old student Alexis Dodge will graduate Friday with mostly all As and Bs. But a few years ago, the situation was vastly different, and Dodge was considering dropping out.
During Dodge’s junior year, a house fire forever changed her and her family. That day started like normal, her mom was at work and Dodge went to school. Her little brother stayed home, she said.
Then when was in 5th or 6th period she got a text from a neighbor that her house was on fire.
“It was one of those things where it was way worse than anybody could have anticipated,” Dodge said.
As everyone rushed home, they discovered the whole house had been burnt down. Her brother had escaped the burning home after the fire began, running to neighbor’s homes to get their attention.
The cause of the fire was never exactly determined. The family did not have home insurance, so they lost almost everything in the fire, Dodge said.
She was devastated.
“It was one of the things where I was like, ‘Why go to school if I can’t go home tomorrow anyway? … Why bother?’” she said.
Dodge continued to have this attitude for several weeks. She began to struggle in school, and it eventually reached the point where she stopped attending classes for part of a semester her junior year.
“I was just struggling super hard to just find the motivation to do things again and feel like, ‘I’m going to be okay,’” she said. “… In my weird little teenage head, I was just like, ‘Chaos, chaos.’”
Eventually, there was a day when Dodge’s grandparents sat her down and explained to her that she could ruin her life by continuing to think this way and ignoring reality. It was the wake-up call Dodge needed, she said.
“It was my grandparents that really took me out of the swamp,” Dodge said.
While the rest of her family moved into a trailer in Avon, Dodge’s grandparents let her stay in Greenwood so she could continue going to GCHS. The condition was she had to work hard to finish school, she said.
“It took me until probably late in that semester where I was just like, ‘I’m tired of being sad all the time. I need to work for something different,’” she said.
With a renewed focus, Dodge’s grades improved. Life since then has been fantastic, she said. She met a guy who she now lives with, and they now have their own house together that they have been working on, she said.
Dodge has also been dedicated to improving her grades, especially during her senior year.
“I sat down, I looked at myself in the mirror and I was like, ‘I have to do this. Not for anybody else, not for the house, not for my parents, for me,” she said.
Dodge is incredibly proud of how far she’s made it since those dark days of her junior year. Without her family, she never would’ve been pulled out of the rut, she said.
“It was one of the things where I have a fantastic support system,” Dodge said. “Seeing me in the situation I was in, they are entirely the ones that saved me from just completely destroying my life and dropping out junior year.”
Through her experience, Dodge says she’s learned that life isn’t always going to be easy and sometimes people have to be a little durable, she said.
“It’s not always going to be easy,” Dodge said. “But I’m overly proud I graduated. Was the journey hard? Not even going to lie to you, it was very hard.”
