From the stands at Homewood Middle School’s first pep rally of the 2025-26 school year, it’s hard to believe that eighth-grader Samantha Dillashaw has ever struggled to find her rhythm. She leaps and twirls across the floor with the HMS Dance Team, her infectious energy and beaming smile reflecting both joy and resilience.

Behind her vibrant performance lies a difficult journey. For years, Samantha was sidelined from her passion due to juvenile idiopathic arthritis, a painful autoimmune disease that affected her ability to move freely.

Samantha’s symptoms began as early as age four. “The pain was constant,” she said, describing how it moved through her ankles, knees, wrists and neck. Because pain was part of her daily reality, she didn’t initially realize it wasn’t normal.

Her mother, D

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