U.S. Sen. Katie Britt shared insights into her journey to become Alabama’s first woman elected Senator in her new memoir, “God Calls Us To Do Hard Things: Lessons from the Alabama Wiregrass,” which went on sell this week.

The 41-year-old is the state’s third woman Senator, the youngest Republican woman elected U.S. senator and the second-youngest woman elected Senator overall.

In her new book, Britt shared stories from her journey from the Wiregrass to Washington.

Here are three things we learned from her book.

Cecil Hurt helped get her husband’s football back:

A 2002 autographed Alabama football belonging to her husband, former lineman Wesley Britt, was thought to have been destroyed in the April 27, 2011 tornado outbreak, and later discovered on display at the Bryant Museum.

Wesley Britt was at the museum for a 2012 function and came across an April 27 exhibit containing his football. He asked the museum director for details. It was found in a driveway, miles from the Britt house.

Wesley Britt told the Bryant Museum in 2018 the ball traveled 10 miles in the air.

“Even more incredibly, it was found by the late, legendary Tuscaloosa sportswriter, Cecil Hurt,” she writes. “Cecil had no way at the time to know who the ball belonged to, so he donated it to the museum for the exhibit.”

She and Wesley have fond memories of their hometown restaurants:

In the chapter titled “Don’ Be a Title Holder, Be a Change Agent,” Britt delves into her favorite restaurants growing up in Enterprise.

Of local meat-and-three Cutts Restaurant, Britt, writes, “Their lima beans are still my favorite.” She calls Effie’s Grill her favorite Mexican restaurant. “I could practically drink the salsa with a straw,” Britt writes in her book.

Britt also fondly remembers walking up to local pharmacy Bryars-Warren Drug Company for ice cream. “As a child, I loved getting ice cream at the counter while we waited for a prescription to be filled.”

Of her husband’s hometown, she writes, “The area surrounding Cullman boasts some of the best no-frills barbecue you’re ever have. Top Hat Barbecue, located just to the south of Hanceville across the county line in Blount Springs, in one of my favorite places to eat in Alabama to this day.”

Britt also gives a shout-out to Hanceville’s Luna’s Bar-B-Que, and the “old-fashioned soda fountain and handspun milkshakes” at Hanceville Drug Company.

She was viciously bullied as a teenager:

As a teenager in Enterprise she endured bullying by classmates, something she says forced her to find the strength to be her true herself even when it meant she “stuck out.”

In 10th grade at Enterprise High School, a truck pulled behind her on her way home.

“I could see through the mirror that in the bed of the truck was a group of the usual suspects who normally gave me a hard time at school,” Britt wrote.

“The moment I got out, they began to egg my car, our house, and me….I begged them to at least let my little sister go inside. They laughed some more.”

Britt said the two worst parts of the episode were that they wanted to see the “total devastation” in her face and that her sister “was beyond upset.”

It later happened again. “We had been invited to a party on someone’s farmland….It was an ambush,” Britt recalled.

“People came out of every nook and cranny, eggs in hand. They waited until we opened the door, and then they started egging us and the car. There was no party. We were the entertainment.”