KILL DEVIL HILLS, N.C. — A seven-time placer at the Presidents' Athletic Conference Swimming Championships last season, Abby Jones was pretty busy.

The Knoch graduate and incoming Westminster College junior hasn't exactly been taking the summer off.

A biology major, Jones is completing her second summer as a lifeguard on the Outer Banks in North Carolina. Working for the Kill Devil Hills agency, she was named Rookie Lifeguard of the Year last summer.

This summer, she was named the agency's Lifeguard of the Year. There are 45 lifeguards working the beaches for the company.

“One of my bosses down here, David Elder, used to be at Westminster,” Jones said. “They needed some lifeguards down here, so he called the Westminster swim team to see if anyone would be interested in coming down.

“I heard about it through word of mouth that way. It sounded interesting, so I thought I'd give it a try.”

Jones took part “in two or three rescues a week” last summer in winning Rookie Lifeguard of the Year by vote of the agency's supervisors. This summer, she's taken part in five rescues.

She was voted Lifeguard of the Year this summer for her overall job performance.

“That meant a lot to me because it means my supervisors and bosses believe I was doing the best job,” Jones said.

“By rescues, I'm not talking about administering CPR, saving someone's life or anything like that. It's more guiding people out of potentially dangerous situations, away from rip tides ... a lot of preventative stuff.

“We scan the water, help people at the beach, keep the beaches clean, educate the public on what to expect with the current that day, things like that.”

Jones went as far as swim well out into the ocean to retrieve a beach ball for two small girls. The girls' grateful mother took a picture of Jones and the two girls with the ball afterward.

“At first, Abby wondered why her supervisor had her swim out after a beach ball,” said Judy Wadding, Jones' grandmother. “But once she saw how excited the girls were to get it back, she was glad she did it.

“We're so proud of what she's doing down there.”

Three days a week, Jones reports to the beach at 8 a.m. for physical training. The lifeguards learn medical practices, do some running and swimming during that time.

Jones works as a lifeguard six days a week, from 10 a.m. until 5:30 p.m. She spends her day off shadowing a pediatrician, as she hopes to get into medical school down the road. She also works in a pizza shop two nights a week.

She also found time to enter lifeguard competitions. Her team qualified for a regional competition at Nags Head, then nationals at Virginia Beach.

“The competition consisted of relays for rescue and a 500-meter swim in the ocean,” Jones said. “I did the 500-meter swim and that's way different from any swimming competition I'd done before,

“That was definitely a big learning curve for me. Open water swimming is difficult — You have to know what the current and conditions are like that day, the surf ... It's very challenging.”

Work commitments prevented Jones from competing at nationals, where she would have faced top-level swimmers.

“There were 100 competitors from Los Angeles coming in for that and most of those people are Division I swimmers,” Jones said. “Those kids grew up on the beach while I'm still learning open-water swimming.

“Still, it would have been fun.”

Jones is hoping to return to the Outer Banks to life-guard again next summer.

“There's a lot of variables, though,” she said. “Housing is tough to find and I may have to pursue an internship opportunity somewhere else. The type of internship I need isn't available down here, so we'll see what happens.”

In the meantime, Jones is preparing for her junior season with the Titans.

“I haven't been able to match my high school times in college yet because the workload academically is so rigorous,” she said. “It's pretty taxing on me and I don't get the work in the pool as much.

“My goal this year is to reach my best high school times and maybe lower them a little bit.”