“It’s mah birthday!!!” (John Fisken photos)
McKayla (top) and McKenzie Bailey, the best there ever was in the photo biz.
“Dang straight, Skippy!!”
The stare started with side-eye, and not just side-eye, but truly epic side-eye.
Then, without seeming to do so, McKenzie Bailey’s head turned 180 degrees and, over the top of her glasses, one eyebrow cocked, she regarded me as if I just asked her to lick a fresh cow pattie.
I had made the mistake of telling her mom, Donna, that with older sister McKayla about to graduate, little sis Mollie, several years shy of high school, was Coupeville Sports next true superstar, the chosen one who would inherit the crown of the one true Photo Bomb Queen.
Realizing my mistake too late (a common occurrence in my life…), I started to stammer while McKenzie held the look for just long enough to send ice down the spine.
“I do not believe I have left this school yet, have I?”
One more beat to let the eyebrow fully cock, then she let me off the hook, her trademark light-up-the-prairie smile breaking through.
And really, could there have been any doubt that McKenzie, who celebrates a birthday today, is already primed to take over the throne held for so long by McKayla?
Photos, taking photos, being in photos, photo-bombing others in photos — it’s a time-honored Bailey Tradition.
Mollie will certainly get her moment, but not until McKenzie lets the crown reluctantly slip from her college-bound fingers in a year or so.
Not that photos are her only claim to fame.
A consistent three-sport athlete (volleyball, basketball, tennis), McKenzie was one of just two Wolves — with Wynter Thorne — to play on both of the CHS squads to win an Olympic League title last year.
A key contributor for both the basketball and tennis teams, which put up the first new championship banners in Cow Town since 2002, Bailey is the real deal.
She’s also a pretty phenomenal student — like big sis — and can probably drive a tractor with one hand while popping wheelies and playing the guitar intro to Nirvana’s “Come as You Are” with the other (why not?) if she wants.
Talented, vivacious, and as friendly as all get out (except when her rise to power is being questioned) McKenzie is a true original.
She’s got some McKayla in her, and a dash of Mollie, and vice versa, but the middle Bailey is her own amazing young woman.
Happy birthday, McKenzie. May your reign be as impressive as you are.
P.S. — That’s pretty dang impressive.
