Two Walton County high school graduates chase down high flying dreams

Some people dream of being a star, while others dream of being among them.

Two high school graduates from Walton County were recently appointed to the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. They are two of only 1,000 students nationwide who are annually appointed to the Academy.

Dustin Luke Hayhurst, graduate of Freeport High School, dreams of being a fighter pilot and ultimately, an astronaut and the first human on Mars.

He excelled in his studies, achieving a 4.0 grade point average, and ranked number one in his class from 2004 through 2008. While doing all of this, he also participated on the football, weight lifting, track and soccer teams. He is a member of the National Honor Society, Sigma Mu Chapter and Phi Theta Kappa.

He was involved with the student council, history club, engineering club and the academic and math teams. Hayhurst was also a soccer coach and lifeguard at the YMCA.

Christopher Nielsen-Jackson, a graduate of South Walton High School, also has interests in the heavens. He attended the NASA Astro Camp, the Advanced Teen Astronomy Camp twice and the Congressional Student Leadership Conference on Aviation and Aeronautics.

He has attended Red Cross Disaster Services Training and the Red Cross Disaster Workshop Training, well equipping him to assist with the Hurricane Katrina disaster when the opportunity arose.

As soon as the roads opened into Mississippi, Nielsen-Jackson and his mother went to Bay St. Louis with an SUV full of supplies. Together, they handed out food and supplies and carried gasoline to generators at relief facilities and helped friends clean up their mud-filled homes. Nielsen-Jackson and his mother made a total of five such trips to the devastated area.

"How sad to see all that was left of my school was the steeple of the church," said Nielson-Jackson.

During high school, he was an "outstanding" member of the band, as well as the concert, marching and jazz bands. He plays a variety of instruments including the clarinet, bass clarinet, trumpet, tuba, contrabass, piano, acoustic and electric guitars, saxophone, glass flute and is currently learning to play the bagpipes.

For the past two years, he has been under an apprenticeship to learn blacksmithing and is a member of the Florida Artist Blacksmith Association. In his spare time he restores and modifies G-body Caballeros.

While at South Walton High, he participated on the soccer and tennis teams and worked at the Olive Garden and Johnny Rockets.

The parents of both students stressed that without the support of family, friends, teachers, coaches and school administrators they could not have achieved this level of success.