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The Andalusia Star-News, along with sponsor Step One Automotive, is pleased to announce the results of the 2024 Covington County Student-Athlete of the Year Award online voting contest.

Bobcat fans voted in full force as this year’s male and female winners both come from Opp High School. Colby Ballard received 51 percent of the male vote while Amaya Womack finished with 47 percent of the female vote. Both Amaya and Colby were seniors and graduated with OHS’s Class of 2024.

Amaya graduated with a 4.1 grade point average and participated in volleyball and softball. As the shortstop on the Lady Bobcat softball team, she hit a triple in the sixth inning of the 3A state championship game against Plainview and scored the game-winning run. Amaya will play softball at Huntingdon College next season where she plans to pursue a degree in Exercise Science and Pre-Physical Therapy. She is the daughter of Hope Stoudemire and Demetrice Womack.

Colby graduated with a 4.4 GPA, was the salutatorian of his class, and was a stand-out athlete in football, basketball, and baseball. Colby plans to attend Troy University and pursue a degree in Environmental Science. He is the son of Brock and Carla Ballard.

Over the course of about three weeks, a total of 2,775 votes were entered for the contest.

Placing second in the male category was Javen Poindexter of Red Level and third place went to Pleasant Home’s Nathan Hobbs. Other male nominees were Tyler Sigers of Andalusia, Rayshon Coleman of Florala, and Parker Black of Straughn.

In the female category, Mariah Crowell of Red Level finished second while Andalusia’s Taya Newton came in third. Other female nominees were Kyndra Anthony of Florala, Hailey Ward of Pleasant Home, and Ora Hall of Straughn.

“The Star-News would like to thank all of this year’s student-athlete nominees for their participation and their hard work in the classroom and on the field. We also thank the coaches and educators who helped us with the project. A big thanks to Step One Automotive for sponsoring the event. Our goals for this contest were to recognize the hard work and dedication of our county’s outstanding student-athletes while also providing readers an opportunity to have fun in the process,” said Star-News Publisher Robert Blankenship.

The Star-News looks forward to covering the 2024-25 local student-athletes and seeing who earns the Student-Athlete of the Year title for their school and makes it onto the list of nominees for the county-wide award.

“With the success of this year’s contest, we certainly look forward to doing it again in 2025. We learned some things along the way this year that will help make next year’s contest even better. Most notably, we will begin the contest earlier so the winner can be announced prior to the end of the school year,” Blankenship said.