FERRIDAY — On Thanksgiving Day, while most seventh graders will be eating dinner with their families, Alexus Calhoun will be in Houston, cheering.

Calhoun went to a camp this summer and tried out to be an All-American Cheerleader.

Not only did Calhoun win, she also was chosen to be the captain.

“I love the spotlight,” she said.

Calhoun, a 12-year-old Ferriday Junior High School student, has only been cheering for two years but said she has been dancing for nine.

“I just like dancing and being with my friends,” she said.

While dancing and cheering are two things she loves to do, Calhoun said she has bigger aspirations.

“I want to be a lawyer,” she said. “And I want to go to Harvard University.”

Calhoun said she has known a future in law was her calling since third grade.

“I just want to help people,” she said. “I want to get people off of the streets who are breaking the law.”

Calhoun gets nothing below As and Bs at school and said her favorite subject is reading.

“I just like the different stories and working with grammar,” she said. “We are reading ‘The Glory Field’ right now and it is a great book.”

Calhoun also said she enjoys science.

“I like learning about the environment and human health,” she said.

Along with school and cheerleading, Calhoun’s list of extracurricular activities includes 4-H, ballet and in the praise dance and choir at New Morningstar Baptist Church.

Calhoun was also chosen to be a member of the homecoming court twice.

“I stay pretty busy,” she said.

Some days Calhoun said she goes from school, to cheerleading practice, to dance practice, to tutoring and then home to do her homework.

“You have to do these things if you want a better future,” she said.

FJHS Assistant Principal Lisa Cater said Calhoun is always receiving compliments for her hard work.

“Teachers are always telling me they wish they had a classroom full of Alexes’s,” Cater said. “I know if I stop her in the hall and ask her to do something, she is going to do it.”

Calhoun will also be receiving the citizenship award for FJHS next week at the school board meeting, and said she has her mom to thank.

“She would do anything for me,” she said.

Calhoun is the daughter of Terry Watson.