During her final semester at the University of Tennessee at Martin, Maleia Bigham’s alarm went off at 4:40 a.m. each morning.
By 5:30, she was on the road to Jackson, where teachers at her student-teaching placement, Jackson Central-Merry High School, reported by 6:45 a.m. Her school day ended at 2 p.m., but her work often did not.
As a student teacher in dance, Bigham worked with middle and high school students. She taught classes and prepared for performances. Some days, she stayed in Jackson until nearly 8 p.m.
She then drove back to Martin.
“It was hard. It was definitely really hard,” Bigham said.
She also chose to remain on the UT Martin dance team through March, even though she knew most students would not try to balance their commitment with student teaching. “I like to finish things out,” she said.
By the time her student-teaching experience ended, however, the early mornings and long days were not what she remembered.
“I cried a lot leaving my kids (on the last day of school),” she said. “It was a really humbling, rewarding experience, but I will miss that season because it was really great.”
Bigham will not have to wait long to return to a classroom.
The dance education major from Turtletown has accepted a position as a dance teacher at Thurgood Marshall Middle School in Nashville and will serve as the school’s cheer coach.
It is the job she came to UT Martin hoping to find.
“UT Martin is actually the only school in the state where you can get a licensure in K-through-12 dance,” Bigham said. “And I knew I didn’t just want to teach in a dance studio. I wanted to teach in a school.”
However, getting from Turtletown in East Tennessee to Martin took some convincing.
Bigham first began researching colleges because she already knew she wanted to become a dance teacher. UT Martin was on her radar, and her father had also worked with former UT Martin Chancellor Keith Carver, who encouraged Bigham and her twin brother, Cade, to visit the university.
Maleia was not immediately sold.
“I came to visit here, and honestly, at first I was like, ‘I don’t know about all this. I don’t know about coming so far from home,’” she said.
Then, Cade became interested in UT Martin, and Maleia gave the university another look. She attended a dance team clinic.
That changed things.
“That’s really where I felt like I found a community and people who I really connected with,” she said. “I was hooked.”
Maleia and Cade both enrolled at UT Martin in 2022. While she pursued dance education, Cade began in engineering before moving to construction management.
The twins built their own lives on campus, sometimes seeing each other constantly and other times barely crossing paths. They made Tuesdays their regular night for dinner together, often at Sammie’s or another spot in Martin.
“If I need anything, if I’m like, ‘Hey, I need to fix my light bulb in my bathroom,’ he’s the first person I can call, and he will come and do it,” Bigham said. “He’s very gracious and helpful.”
The move across the state also gave Bigham the chance to see what she could do on her own.
She joined the dance team and performed at athletic and community events. She became a campus recreation instructor and served as a Student Government Association senator for the College of Humanities and Fine Arts. She performed with the dance ensemble and advocated for the dance program through SGA.
She also entered her first pageant during her time at UT Martin.
“That was kind of a side quest I’d never thought I would do,” Bigham said.
Bigham entered the Miss UT Martin Volunteer Pageant as a freshman and finished as first runner-up. Her teammates encouraged her to continue competing.
She did.
She later won the Miss Springtime Volunteer title in Humboldt, became Miss UT Martin Volunteer, served as Miss Shelby County Volunteer and is now Miss Memphis Volunteer.
“I keep saying I still don’t know what I’m doing,” she said. “I’m genuinely just doing it as I go.”
Her year as Miss UT Martin Volunteer included one of the more difficult moments of her college experience. On the day she was scheduled to check in for the competition in Jackson, Bigham went to the hospital and learned she had mononucleosis and autoimmune hepatitis caused by the illness.
She competed anyway, with an IV in her arm.
“I loved being Miss UT Martin,” she said. “There was no way I was not going to represent the college at state.”
Her work with the Miss Tennessee Volunteer organization also gave her an opportunity to support a cause with a personal connection.
Bigham and her twin brother were born three months premature, and their family stayed at the Ronald McDonald House in Chattanooga. She chose the organization as her community service initiative and began interviewing people whose families had also been helped by Ronald McDonald House programs.
Her guests have included another pageant titleholder and her mother.
“By telling their stories, they’re able to also advocate for why it’s such a good cause to commit to,” Bigham said.
However, dance remained at the center of her four years at UT Martin.
Bigham began dancing at age 9 after her family’s unsuccessful attempts to find a sport she enjoyed.
“I think my mom wanted to put me in something where I would use all my energy up before I came home,” she said.
Dance was different.
“That was the first thing I really was like, ‘I want to do more. I want to perform more,’” she said.
She eventually commuted nearly an hour and a half to train at a dance studio with a higher level of instruction.
“So, I was all in once I started,” she said.
At UT Martin, retired dance professor Sarah McCormick became more than a teacher to Bigham.
“She really became like my built-in grandmother,” Bigham said.
Their relationship extended beyond the classroom. Bigham visited McCormick’s home for lunches and dinners and knew she could call her when she needed something. In the studio, McCormick pushed her to try things she had not done before.
“She said, ‘I know this is what you’ve been doing your whole life, but we’re going to do this now, and you’re going to grow,’” Bigham said. “And so, she really pushed me to be the best version of myself in and out of the studio.”
The relationship continued after McCormick’s retirement. She even traveled to Jackson to watch Bigham’s students perform during her student-teaching placement.
Bigham said her senior year brought a different perspective under dance professor JC Burnett-Gordon, whose emphasis on education helped prepare her for the classroom and connect her with the people who led her to her new job in Nashville.
“He introduced me to a lot of different education tactics, and just how to really be 100% in the classroom for students,” she said.
Even near the end of her time at UT Martin, Bigham continued finding herself in unexpected situations.
Two weeks before “Dancing with the Skyhawks,” a campus competition inspired by “Dancing with the Stars” that paired students with faculty and staff, she was asked to step in as a coach after another coach unexpectedly had to drop out.
Then, on the day of the performance, one member of the couple was unable to participate.
Bigham stepped in.
“Rick, the senior student who I was coaching — he had worked so hard, and I did not want him to not have the chance to perform,” she said.
They practiced together that day and performed in the show. Later, Rick attended one of Bigham’s student dance recitals and gave her a plaque to thank her.
It was one more experience Bigham never expected when she first considered moving across Tennessee for college.
She said she will miss the closeness of the UT Martin community, from calling friends to meet at Sammie’s to walking across campus and constantly being around her teammates and fellow dancers.
“I did not know anyone when I came here besides my twin brother,” she said. “Now, I have lifelong friends, amazing connections.”
Four years after arriving in Martin, Bigham is leaving with the opportunity she wanted from the beginning: her own students and her own dance classroom.
“Now, I’m getting to go on and do what I came here to do, which is teaching school,” she said.
For more information about UT Martin, visit www.utm.edu or call 1-800-829-UTM1 (-8861).
PHOTO: Maleia Bigham performs in the fall 2025 showcase, “Lyft Off,” at Harriet Fulton Theatre in the UTM Fine Arts Building. The performance came during the UT Martin dance education program’s 21st year as part of the university’s curriculum and was Bigham’s final performance with the ensemble. Bigham, a dance education major from Turtletown, has accepted a position as a dance teacher at Thurgood Marshall Middle School in Nashville and will serve as the school’s cheer coach.
