A year has passed since Afton Wallace succumbed to Ewing’s sarcoma, a rare form of pediatric cancer.

Her spirit lives on in the lives she touched and the community she called home.

In 2015, her friends and teammates with the Vicksburg Swim Association silently swam her favorite event — the 100-meter backstroke — in her honor at the Stamm Family Invitational.

At this year’s Stamm Invitational, they did even more.

Through the Splash4Gold Coast-to-Coast swim meet, a national swim meet to raise money for pediatric cancer research, a $1,000 scholarship was funded in Wallace’s name. Its first recipients were Chip Fields and Kaylynne Wallace.

“Our hope is to expand the scholarships next year. We’re putting money away that would lead up to cancer research, specially in Ewing’s sarcoma,” said Afton’s mother, Sheri Wallace.

Swimmers had to participate in multiple events, swim all year and be going to college to qualify for the scholarship.

VSA coach Mathew Mixon selected Fields and Kaylynne Wallace — Afton’s younger sister — who were unaware of the scholarship and accepted it with shock.

Fields and Kaylynne swam every event, which set them apart from other swimmers. They also earned service hours from local meets at the YMCA and city pool.

“It’s very relieving,” said Fields, who will be attending Hinds Community College in Vicksburg and plans to transfer from there to an in-state four-year university. “It’s $1,000 less to come out of my pocket.”

When Kaylynne Wallace’s name was announced as the recipient of a scholarship in her sister’s honor, she embraced her father while shedding tears into his chest.

“It also makes it a little harder because it is another reminder she’s not here, but it’s also a reminder she can live on,” Kaylynne said. “It’s kind of a mixed feeling.”

Fields plans to major in aeronautical engineering. Kaylynne is undecided what she’ll be majoring in at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.

By attending BYU, a private and prestigious Mormon university, Kaylynne will extend her family’s tradition. Both parents went to BYU, her grandfather works on campus and she was supposed to join Afton on campus in the fall.

“When I was six, my grandpa took me and my older sister on a tour of the campus and I just fell in love. They have an underground library and I love my grandpa’s office,” Kaylynne said. “I’m a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints so it’ll be a place where a bunch of other Mormon kids are going and will be around a bunch of kids who share the same standards and beliefs that I do.”

Before day two of the Stamm invitational, Sheri addressed the crowd at City Pool about the issues hindering pediatric cancer research, most notably the funding.

Sheri said less than four percent of research funds go toward pediatric cancer research.

“It’s kind of a sad, sad, sad thing when you consider how much goes to cancer that’s self-inflicted,” Sheri said. “A lot of cancer research goes through the (Department of Veterans Affairs) and so the VA is hitting that category with soldiers that smoke and things like that so their research goes to them.

“But there’s nobody that’s really a voice for pediatric cancer,” she continued. “Aaron Rodgers has been a big voice for pediatric cancer in the NFL and I’m hopeful it’ll become bigger.”