Jazzmine Mason suffered more trauma before she lost all of her baby teeth than most people face in their entire lifetimes.

Mason – a cheerleader and softball and basketball player at Hatton High School – is a regional winner in the Bryant-Jordan Foundation Scholarship Program’s Achievement category, which honors senior athletes who have overcome personal adversity to excel. All regional winners receive a $3,000 scholarship and could win more at the annual awards banquet on April 10 at the Sheraton Birmingham. A total of $1 million is available in scholarship funds.

Mason’s father died of cancer when she was 3 years old. For the next six years, she lived in an unstable environment in Moulton with her single mother and an older brother. Her mother suffered from depression after the loss of her husband and, in Mason’s words from her essay in the Bryant-Jordan nomination documents, “I began to notice changes in my mother’s personality. She never stayed home, was always tired and left me to live a completely different life than other kids my age.”

Mason’s mother was using drugs, she said, as was her brother. The siblings received some semblance of stability from their grandmother, who supported them on government assistance.

“I started to fall out of line,” Mason said. “My grades decreased tremendously, my moods were constantly changing, and my social skills were inadequate.”

In the winter of 2012, she said, she realized her brother was an addict. On June 26, 2013, two police officers came to her home to speak to her mother. Jazzmine was sent to her bedroom, where she heard her mother’s hysterical crying. Her brother, unable to cope with his addiction, had died by suicide.

“This event, paired with the recent passing of my grandmother, took a major toll on our family,” Mason wrote.

Things would get even worse about three months later. In late September, Jazzmine and her mother were in a car accident. “This day was the worst day of my life,” she wrote. Her mother was taken off life support on Oct. 10, 2013. “Since then,” Mason said, “I have been left with a tremendous weight of survivor’s guilt.”

A few days after her mother’s funeral, Jazzmine made a decision that changed her life. Jazzmine had two older half-sisters who already were making their way into young adulthood. They asked her who she wanted to live with. One, Brooke Headrick, lived with her husband, Ryan, in Town Creek. They had a daughter and one on the way. The other half-sister lived in Decatur.

“It was pretty easy. I had spent nights with Brooke when my mom was alive, so it wasn’t anything different from what I was expecting. It was weird at times,” Mason told AL.com of her adjustment to a new living arrangement. “Sometimes it was like, ‘In this situation, should I be your sister or your mom,’ but we figured it out.”

She started school at Hatton as a third-grader and learned she was, perhaps, one of only two biracial students at the school. Chasity Carroll, Hatton’s athletic director and cheer coach, said she knew Mason through her participation in athletics and as a student of hers beginning in ninth grade.

“When she first moved to Hatton, it was well before we consolidated (with R.A. Hubbard in 2022), so you do notice when an African American girl moves in a predominantly white school,” Carroll said.

In her essay, Mason wrote, “I began living with Brooke still not having any idea how to fit in or make new friends at this new school, until I started playing basketball.”

Mason said she had a few friends, but still felt she was “the new Black kid on the basketball team that no one really liked.” Soon, though, Mason began to play travel ball. “We changed from rec ball to travel ball and we all became very close because we played basketball throughout the year.

“I didn’t realize how much one sport could impact my life and change it for the better,” Mason wrote. “I didn’t feel like the poor biracial girl that lost her parents, I finally felt like a respected athlete that was part of a team.”

Carroll said Mason was never the standout athlete on the basketball or softball teams. “She may be one who comes off the bench and fills a role,” she said. “She knows her role and fulfills it. She’s one of the biggest team supporters. She had a good year in softball last year, even if she was coming off the bench. She never complained about her role. She was at all the practices and workouts. Our softball team was very successful, and she did what she could as a teammate.

“Jazz has a big personality and honestly, she just lights up a room,” Carroll said. “No matter what she’s dealing with, she’s going to have a smile on her face. Even if she gets upset or frustrated, she tries to find a positive. She is a hard worker and very dependable. If she tells you she’s going to do something, she’s going to do it. If you ask her to do something, she’s going to make sure those things get done.”

Mason may not have been one of the top performers on her basketball and softball teams, but she was named the softball team captain, cheer team captain, Softball Role Player of the Year, School Impact Player of the Year, Basketball Most Outstanding Teammate and the 2021 winner of the Basketball Hustle Award.

“I think you have to be really mentally tough,” Mason said, “especially in sports. I feel like my past helped me mature faster. As I’ve grown up, I did wonder what it would have been like if I still lived with my mom. I don’t think I have missed anything – and a good opportunity came out of it.”

Among her school awards and activities, the 18-year-old was a member of the 2022 Homecoming Queen’s Court, a Miss Hatton High nominee, a member of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, a member of the Students Against Destructive Decisions, a participant in the First Priority Clothe Our Kids Drive and the Spirit Club leader.

Off campus, Mason is a youth basketball camp instructor, a teen Bible study group leader, a Special Olympics teammate, a participant in the March of Dimes fundraising committee and Read Across America.

Mason also works part-time at a wedding venue in Town Creek and plans to become an elementary school teacher. She plans to attend Northwest Shoals Community College after graduation.

“I was really shocked when my cheer coach told me about winning the Bryant-Jordan award,” she said. “It would mean a lot to me to win (the overall award) and make me feel like my story was heard.”