UFC fighter Hailey Cowan pumps up McGregor students participating in daylong community service effort

McGREGOR, Texas (KWTX) - Central Texas’ only female UFC fighter in history pumped up students at a local high school as they embarked on a full day of annual service across the community.

Hailey Cowan, a 2-time All American from Baylor’s Acrobatics and Tumbling Team and top ranked MMA fighter, told the crowd despite her athletic success, she’s discovered her true self and purpose in life by serving others.

Cowan said she was excited to accept the school’s invitation to be guest speaker at an event that focused on giving back.

“It’s really cool to see students doing good things for other people,” Cowan told KWTX. “We live in such a weird time where everything is about me, me, me, me, me. So, it’s really cool to see kids this age understand the importance of going out and doing things for other people, and how that reflects back and makes you a better person.”

The 420 students left Cowan’s pep-talk in the high school auditorium to fan out across the community and do acts of service.

Some went to the local food pantry while others washed school buses. Others cleaned up a park, while some worked at the school track.

Junior Shamya Barrett helped clean up the house of a retired couple. They did everything from cleaning out gutters, to washing windows, a car, and cleaning the porch.

“We get to go in the community,” Barrett said. “We get to help people like Bonnie who can’t really clean her windows or wash her car or clean her garage anymore. We just help her do that.”

It was a feeling of making a difference shared by freshman student Maria Espinoza.

“It makes me feel good that we can go and help out community with these kinds of acts,” Espinoza said.

Jennifer Millsap has helped organize the event since it began in 2016.

She said the kids look forward to doing it year-round and start signing up for certain jobs as soon as the day is announced.

“Oh, they love it,” Millsap said. “They start signing up like ‘oh I want to be on this job. I want to be here. Can I do that?’”

“It’s extremely special to watch the kids get excited about something other than just the four walls of school, something other than sports, something other than what their life is normally about. They get super excited to go out into the community to be a team and work together.”

The Revolution Day of Service was started following the death of 15-year-old Rhett Hering who died in 2015 near his driveway in a UTV accident.

His mother, Lorna, is a teacher at the high school and was part of the crews doing work Thursday.

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