MARION, Va. – It has been a familiar scene.
A student at Marion Senior High School is having a bad day, had an issue with a classmate or a special needs child simply needs a friend.
Enter Anna Hagy, FCA president, homecoming queen, three-sport standout, incomparable academics, a person that Marion athletic director and girls basketball coach Sallie Moss calls a “people pleaser.”
“I don’t think of anyone as any different,” Hagy said. “I walk down the hallway and say hello to almost everyone because I truthfully I do, I love everyone. Even if I don’t know them I say hey to them and I smile at them.”
Troy Pollard, a math instructor at Marion for the last 20 years, has witnessed those interactions.
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“She is always kind to people, our special needs kids, she is always going up to them…They seek her out and she seeks them out,” Pollard said. “On a daily basis you see that interaction and she always does it with a smile and shows love to them.
“If you put the academics to the side, sports to the side, and everything that she is good at, she is a fabulous person. She is what God would have us to be. She is what our creator would have us to show to others. She is truly loving.”
She has definitely touched those around her, helping to guide others while thriving on her own.
“Anna is my role model. I aspire to be her,” said Moss’ daughter, Ella, a sophomore at Marion. “We play all the same sports. This year she was like a big sister. She was giving me rides all the time, whenever my head was down she was talking to me, just getting me up. She is amazing, she really is. She is just always there for me.”
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Chosen as the school’s Gene “Pappy” Thompson Award for Excellence nominee out of a class of 129, Hagy strived to follow in the path of Margaret Wagner, the 2017 award winner from Marion.
“I wasn’t really expecting it, but it is really something I have dreamed of since my freshman year,” Hagy said. “I really wanted it. I think they picked me because I am a good leader and over the past few years they have watched me grow into someone else.
“When I first came in I was a shy and kind of timid freshman, but now I am president of the FCA and I am not afraid to branch out. I think that is why they picked me because I am a serving leader, I like to help other people.”
Hagy has overcome tragedy in her life. The daughter of Stephen and Amanda Hagy, her father – a former Marion police officer - died in 2018 and she has done her best to make him proud.
“He was always talking highly of us,” said Hagy, whose brother, Andrew, is a police officer in Roanoke, and sister, Abigail, recently graduated from Radford and plans to follow the same career path. “He and my mom divorced, but when he wasn’t around he was always telling people about us and our accomplishments and how proud of us he was.
“Watching me being the baby, I am sure he is really proud of me.”
Amanda Hanshew, the marketing teacher and volleyball coach at Marion, can vouch that he would be.
“Anna is just one of those special kids that comes along,” Hanshew said. “She is the one that whatever you say she is going to do it at 100 percent because she doesn’t want to let you down, she doesn’t want to let herself down and she doesn’t want to let her teammates down.
“You couldn’t ask for a better one in the classroom or as far as a great kid overall.”
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While Hagy was a four-year letterman in basketball, volleyball and softball, there is little doubt where her first love lies, thriving as a defensive specialist on the hardwood for Moss, earning all-Region 2D and Southwest District three times each, thriving despite her smallish 5-foot-4 stature. She could also shoot, canning five 3s in Marion’s season-ending loss to Wise County Central in the regional semifinals.
She will continue her basketball career at least one year at Southwest Virginia Community College, with plans to get her master’s degree in elementary or special education at the University of Arizona or Texas.
“She was the team captain. She was the defensive person for us, she always guarded the best player on the other team and took it to heart,” said Moss, whose ‘Canes’ only losses last season were to a trio of eventual state champions. “She was like you are not going to score more than five points on me and she did it too, she did a great job.”
A three-time All-SWD volleyball performer and center fielder for the softball team, Hagy has combined with Ally White as co-president of the Student Council Association, in addition maintaining a 4.5 grade point average, which Mike Davidson, in his 11th year as principal at Marion, said is fifth in her class.
“What you see every year are certain kids that just shine and Anna has been one of those kids,” Davidson said. “She is competitive in athletics, but she is also excelling in the classroom and she is a genuine person, she has just got a great personality and it is a caring personality.
“She wants to make sure everyone else is taken care of. It is just her nature, and because of that she is well liked and a great kid to be around.”
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Her heart lies with special needs children, a passion first developed through her involvement in programs and mission trips with the First United Methodist Church in Marion.
“It led me to them just because of the way they are. They love everyone and there is never a dull moment with them,” she said. “There are some I bonded with instantly and then there were the ones that were non-verbal and you don’t really know what to do.
“It was really eye-opening and heart-warming at the same time because I get to see how they live, which, it is different, but I don’t look at them any different.”
Marion has three self-contained classrooms that allows children with special needs or physical disabilities to mingle with the rest of the students, and that has provided a calling in life for Hagy.
“I always say there are special people that God picks to work with those that have disabilities and Anna just has that,” Hanshew said. “They love her, because she seeks them, she goes to ask them how their day is. She makes sure to see if they need anything.”
While Hagy knows them all, Marley and Katelyn are the special needs students that come to mind.
“[Marley] runs and hugs me every single day,” Hagy said. “She will run through the hallway and almost knocks me over sometimes. To be able to see her every day and to work with them, it is something I want to do for the rest of my life.”
“I just know she is going to be a good teacher,” added Ella Moss. “Even with the special needs kids, she knows all of them. There is this little girl named Katelyn that she takes pictures with and they have a really good time together. She is just always talking to them, always getting along with them.”
There have been others who have benefited from Hagy’s big heart. Pollard had learned of a student at the school who was having an issue with a classmate. He wasn’t surprised to learn who stepped in.
“I don’t know what degree she knew this person, but they weren’t close friends,” Pollard said. “Whether Anna sought her out or they found themselves in the same place, Anna became friends with her and was of comfort…I was bragging on her to other colleagues and that name resurfaces of who the student was who had helped the child and it was Anna.
“I was like, ‘Of course it’s Anna. How could it have not been Anna?’”
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Hagy also finds time to stay involved in her community, from helping others through Special Olympics, assisting with local nursing homes, blood drives, sports camps and also works at Hungry Mother State Park. She is also the main “T-shirt lady” for “Simply Sparkles”, a T-shirt monogramming business that runs out of Hanshew’s marketing class.
She is busy, but don’t look for any complaints.
“It all means a lot to me so I do what I can to make time for it,” Hagy said. “It not easy, but it is worth it and I am busy and I am tired, but at the end of the day, there is nothing else I would rather be doing.”
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Hagy, who plans to teach elementary education or special education and serve as a coach, will graduate on Friday. It will be a bittersweet moment.
“I am very excited, but I am also very sad to graduate. I know I will leave here with a legacy, one that people can follow in,” Hagy said. “I just want to be a good role model to little kids and let them know there are good people and let them know they can look up to me.
“They are what inspires me for what I am and who I am and what I do and what I have accomplished. I wouldn’t be where I am if it wasn’t for the kids and my family and the people in the community. I have a legacy that kids can look up to. I am a leader and I do things for other people and that is that is what I will take away from here.”
It’s safe to say she will be missed.
“There are a lot of wonderful people in the world and there might be some as good,” Pollard said, “but there won’t be any better than Anna.”
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