Junior Stevie Burns, junior Lieutenant for the Silver Spurs and French horn player in the band, balances school, performing and competitions while dealing with injuries and health issues.

Burns takes four AP classes and keeps calendars for drill team, band rehearsals and competitions. During marching season, as soon as Burns gets home, she does homework until 1 a.m. and then gets up at 5 to get ready for school.

“It’s incredibly stressful,” Burns said. “It’s hard to get up every day and go to school and then practice until at night when you’re tired and sore and you have a pile of work waiting for you as soon as you’re done.”

Burns gets help with homework from a friend, junior Kayla Parkins, who tutors her on difficult subjects.

“Helping Stevie with homework is interesting,” Parkins said, “but she is a smart kid. That makes the process of teaching her much easier.”

As well as managing school and extracurricular activities, Burns has to deal with illness and has been recovering from a knee injury for over a year.

“My body is constantly under stress and really doesn’t get the time it needs to heal and recover,” Burns said.

During drill team competitions she was diagnosed with mono. Burns tried to go to practice, but once she realized she was contagious, she stopped going so she wouldn’t infect her team. Burns danced in three of the six dances she was going to be in, even though she wasn’t supposed to do any physical activity.

“There’s nothing more disappointing than preparing and practicing for months and not being able to preform,” Burns said.

Burns takes Ibuprofen every few hours to fight the pain and rests and ices her knee as often as possible.

“I’m really stubborn and ambitious, so I just fight the obstacles and deal with them as they come,” Burns said.