CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- She hurls three batons high in the air, catches them deftly, hurls and catches them again and again. She moves confidently, feeling the rhythm, focusing with the casual intensity of a master juggler.

Even at 50, the champion baton twirler hasn't lost her touch.

The determination it took to achieve such perfection shaped the rest of her life.

An associate professor at West Virginia State University, Paige Carney Salgado built an impressive career in education. She earned a doctorate and compiled a four-page, single-spaced resume.

She credits much of her professional success to the drive she developed in baton twirling competition.

In 1981, she realized her ultimate dream when she won Miss College Majorette of America.

Twirling taught her the importance of perseverance.

"I grew up in Teays Valley. I started twirling when I was about 8. My mom had been the featured twirler at the University of Cincinnati. She had a dance and baton studio, and she had Carney's Canaries, the twirling troupe.

"She found other teachers to work with me. My first true baton teacher lived in Columbus, Ohio -- Kent Amlin. Every other weekend, we would travel to wherever he was teaching, sometimes Columbus, sometimes Portsmouth, and I'd spend two or three hours taking lessons.

"It was a process. My intrinsic motivation and determination helped me to understand that, 'OK, you aren't there yet. This is going to take time.' The secret is having the persistence to keep trying.

"My mom took me to Columbus and Pennsylvania to compete. One night, we came back on a Sunday in a huge snowstorm. This contest was huge. I got my first trophy, 9th place out of 50 kids. When we got back, my mom got the car stuck at 3 in the morning and had to go get my dad out of bed. He said, 'All this, and all she got was that little trophy!'

"Over time, things changed, and I started to progress. Then I had some twirling teachers even further away. My last one was Bud Skrivan in Long Beach, Calif. I would fly out there in the summers and stay with his family for a week or week and a half and he would create all my routines.

"I also had a teacher in Chicago, Anita McDonald. Mom ended up flying her in to our studio here.

"I did more than just twirl. I danced. I took ice skating lessons and rode horses and dabbled in a lot of different things. When I decided I really wanted to be the best I could be at this, I let the other things go. My goal was to win Miss Majorette of America.

"It took me longer than some people. I would overthink things, think too much about the person evaluating my performance. I learned to block that out and concentrate on the individual trick.

"I didn't twirl in high school. I was a cheerleader and twirled competitively on weekends and in the summers. On Friday nights, I wasn't out with my friends. I would practice. I had a lot of self-discipline and perseverance.

"Mom and dad built a house, and in the part that was to be a garage, they built a small studio. It had high ceilings, so I could do two or three spins. I had no excuse not to practice.

"The studio was filled with trophies. I stopped counting after 1,200. After a while, it was more about trying to get better to obtain my final goal.

"In high school, after I started getting better, I decided to start looking for universities that offered scholarships. Even WVU doesn't offer twirling scholarships.

"I discovered that the University of South Carolina offered scholarships to twirlers. It was a music scholarship. I have no musical ability. It was all based on twirling. There were two weekends of tryouts. I was one of two featured twirlers. We had a wonderful time out there.

"For college, I also had my America's Junior Miss money, $8,000. I won West Virginia's Junior Miss and America's Junior Miss Over-all Youth Fitness Award. Andy Gibb presented me with the award. My whole college was paid for.

"Twirling at the college level was challenging because I had always cheered. I'd never been out there twirling on the football field. It was comical at times. The band would be down on one end of the field, and the band director would be yelling, 'Paige, where are you?'

"It took me 12 years to get that final thing. I won some individual world championships in different divisions, but in 1981, I finally won Miss College Majorette of America. I had achieved my goal.

"I got to go to Switzerland and teach baton. Nobody spoke English but me. I taught people from France, Germany, Italy and Switzerland, so it was interesting.

"I decided to be a teacher and majored in early childhood education. I had moved to Kentucky and got a master's in elementary ed and later a doctorate from UK.

"I started teaching in Lexington. I taught kindergarten for eight years. I taught private baton on the side and worked with the UK majorettes and featured twirler and later with Miss Kentucky.

"I ended up back in school full time for my doctorate. I became assistant director for Kentucky's educational reform initiative and traveled as a consultant and trainer of teachers.

"I love West Virginia. I wanted my children to be around their grandparents, so I came back. I've taught at four colleges. I'm associate professor at West Virginia State. Before that, I was at the University of Charleston as program education coordinator.

"At State, I teach four different education classes. I still teach twirling on the side. I'm teaching this weekend in Flatwoods, Ky., and I teach at summer camps.

"I recently had an email from a friend in Atlanta who teaches at the University of Georgia. She invited me to provide guidance and choreography for their national routine next summer at Notre Dame.

"I'm a National Baton Twirling Association judge. Last summer, I went to Notre Dame for the national competition. My mom and I both judged. And I judged at the Miss Majorette of America Pageant.

"I have two boys, 14 and 15. They're into basketball, cross country and soccer. Nobody twirls. It's nice not going every weekend to baton contests.

"There are very few featured twirlers or majorette lines now. The whole movement is toward color guards. They're pushing that more than the majorettes. Some college bands still have huge majorette lines, mostly the southern states. Penn State has a dynamic majorette line. I don't know if it will ever be revived here.

"The athleticism appealed to me. People don't want to think that twirling is a sport, but if you ever went to a national competition, you would see that it is difficult. You have to be in shape. It's not just the baton. It involves gymnastics and dancing.

"The whole challenge of that didn't come easy to me, so I had to continually strive. Sometimes that's a fault. It's the same with anything I do. I don't want to take on anything if I know I can't give it 110 percent of my time.

"You don't measure success by winning. It's the whole process you go through. I learned that you aren't always successful the first time, but you have to keep trying. That's what I try to instill in my boys. Don't ever give up.

"It made me who I am today. I had a great time, and I'm glad to still be a part of it."