THE FRONT ROW with BRUCE BOURQUIN April 1, 2016: Hawkes a caregiver on and off the diamond

Amber Hawkes is a 21-year-old pitcher for North Idaho College softball team, a freshman athletically and a junior academically who wears No. 9.

But it’s what the 2013 Lake City High graduate has done as a caregiver for a young man who is roughly the same age as her that has been pretty special. So this could make her — you guessed it — No. 1 in your hearts.

Since she transferred from Boise State University in early May, after changing her major four times got, in her words, “expensive,” Hawkes met 22-year-old R.J. Jay, who is autistic, through Amber’s mother, Dawn, who is a manager of pharmacy at Kootenai Health. In late May, Hawkes, who lives in Hayden, became his caregiver. Hawkes does not do this through NIC, where her major is speech therapy, but as a full-time job. She hopes to be a speech therapist at places like elementary schools and hospitals.

“His mom Janelle works as a pharmacy technician with my mom,” Hawkes said. “He needed a caregiver in the summer; there are three people taking care of him.”

Hawkes primarily works on social interaction with R.J., who also graduated from Lake City after growing up in Spokane and moving to Coeur d’Alene. Autistic people can at times have a little trouble with interacting with other people. R.J.’s mother, Janelle, is his primary caregiver and is the individual who hired Amber.

“We go on hikes; he likes going to Silverwood (Theme Park),” Hawkes said. “He likes to come to our practices and our games, including away games on one-day trips. He’s highly functional, I’ll have dinner with him at times.”

DAWN SAID she saw these qualities in Amber since her oldest daughter was young, and especially in high school.

“She (Janelle) knew Amber had been going to NIC,” Dawn said. “I felt like she was very gifted in working with kids in special education. Kids are drawn to her, she’d go out during lunches at Lake City and hug the kids who had either Down Syndrome or things like that. Teachers asked Amber to be their aide. With R.J., they hit it off.”

After originally majoring in nursing at Boise State — she did not play any intercollegiate sports in her two years at BSU, after having played softball, basketball and tennis at Lake City — Amber eventually wound up switching her major to special education.

“She said, ‘You’re right, I don’t need to make all the money in the world,” Dawn said.

Amber said this will be her only season playing at NIC, before she hopes to move on and complete her degree at either the University of Idaho or Eastern Washington. At this time, she does not plan on playing any sport at a four-year school.

R.J. HAS fun watching the 5-foot-9 lanky lady pitch from the circle, trying to mow down hitters and prevent talented offenses across the Northwest Athletic Conference from defeating the Cardinals.

She’s done a pretty good job keeping fans like R.J. and others happy, as she has a 5-1 record with a 6.08 earned-run average, with 30 strikeouts and 19 walks allowed over 45 2/3 innings. She’s considered the Cardinals’ No. 2 pitcher behind redshirt freshman Katie Barron (8-1, 3.02 ERA, 51 strikeouts), on a team that going into today’s doubleheader at Wenatchee Valley is 13-3 (7-1 NWAC). On Wednesday in a doubleheader sweep of Columbia Basin College at Lake City, Hawkes earned the five-inning win in a 17-3 rout, allowing two earned runs on six hits, striking out five and walking one. She also hit back-to-back home runs, her first two this season.

During the state 5A softball tournament last season at Post Falls, while Amber was watching her younger sister, Heather Hawkes, play for Lake City, Cardinals coach Don Don Williams was there and ran into Amber. Williams has known about her skills since she was a young player. Heather is now a senior second baseman at Lake City.

“She supported our team and she came to our softball camps,” Williams said of Amber. “She’s gotten better each start. We are very proud of her.”

The fact Hawkes is having a pretty good season is made even more impressive by the fact she really hasn’t played competitive softball since her sophomore season at Lake City, back in the olden days of 2011. Hawkes pitched and the Timberwolves’ ace pitcher was none other than Casey Stangel, who is currently a junior at the University of Washington.

Hawkes opted to play tennis as a junior and senior at Lake City.

“I saw Don Don at state and she told me ‘We’ve been recruiting players, come check us out.’ It was good being close to home and I knew I could save my parents some money. I won’t look to play softball after going to NIC, so I will finish at either University of Idaho or Eastern Washington.”

WILLIAMS HAS enjoyed seeing Hawkes work with R.J., who has been known to take part in pregame running drills with the team.

“She’s doing a great job with him,” Williams said. “She works on social skills. She has plans on being a teacher. We’ve adopted him as part of our team.”

Amber has also been a nice role model for Heather and Krista Hawkes, a freshman at Lake City. All three wish to become medical professionals. Heather has a scholarship offer to play for Eastern Oregon University and she wants to become an orthodontist, while Krista wishes to become a neurosurgeon.

“She’s an amazing big sister to them,” Dawn said.

Looks like Amber has been amazing in a lot of facets, taking care of others both on and off the softball diamond.

Bruce Bourquin is a sports writer at The Press. He can be reached at 664-8176, Ext. 2013 or via e-mail at bbourquin@cdapress.com