Spotlight | Jillian Powell from Nordhoff High School | Thomas Fire claimed her home, but not her spirit

Jillian Powell

It was the middle of Jillian Powell’s senior year, her thoughts centered on graduation and college, when disaster struck. The devastating Thomas Fire consumed more than a thousand buildings, including the home Jillian had shared with her family for eight years in the hills near Ojai. One of the only things that survived the flames was her steel shot put ball. Almost all of her other belongings were reduced to ash. “There were athletic shirts that I got at special meets that I wanted to give to my kids one day, but that will never happen,” she says. “There were stuffed animals from my childhood and even from my mother and father’s childhood that will never be replaced.”

School was closed for weeks while the fire raged and smoke polluted the air. And once she returned to class, the trauma wasn’t over. “I’ve never missed so much school before,” she says. “It definitely affected my school work and I actually dropped two AP classes because I just couldn’t keep my focus. I’d find myself drifting off in classes thinking I don’t have my home anymore.”

The charred remains of Jillian’s home near Ojai after the Thomas Fire

But with the support of friends and family and the Nordhoff school community, Jillian regained her focus and resumed the busy scheduled that has made her a stand-out student. Throughout high school, Jillian has been involved in the chamber choir, marching band, symphonic band and jazz band. An avid athlete, she’s participated in track and field, basketball and volleyball, all while taking some of Nordhoff’s most academically challenging classes. “I like to call it my organized chaos,” she says. “When I’m not involved in a lot of things, I find myself procrastinating and not finishing work on time, so I think having a bunch of activities keeps me together and keeps me organized.”

Jillian has earned a scholarship to attend Illinois College in Jacksonville, Illinois. She plans to major in psychology and minor in communications and will be part of the school’s track and field program. “I’m really excited. It’s something that feels right in my heart and it’s a brand-new start. A new state, a new school, new everything.”

Jillian hasn’t yet settled on a career, but she’s considering social work, clinical mental health counseling or maybe even acting. Whatever the future holds, she says the experience of living through the Thomas Fire will make her stronger. “I’m hoping that this can be a shaping event in my life that shows me what I have and that I can’t live to regret anything.”

Get Citizensjournal.us Headlines free  SUBSCRIPTION. Keep us publishing – DONATE