Photos by Eric Brady | The Roanoke Times

Coach Greg Barton congratulates Amber Altice at the beginning of softball practice Monday on her scholarship award. Barton was one of a few people who knew about the award ahead of time and had to keep it a secret.

Photos by Eric Brady | The Roanoke Times

William Byrd senior and softball player Amber Altice (center left) switched from pitching to third base this season.

Photos by Eric Brady | The Roanoke Times

Amber Altice is a member of the softball team, a recreational golfer and a valedictorian at William Byrd High School.

Courtesy of Sarah Kirk

Amber Altice, pictured with father John Altice and brother Jonathan at Monday's scholarship ceremony at 419 West, plans to attend Virginia Tech in the fall.

Amber Altice seemed a little overwhelmed Monday as she posed for photos behind the supersized facsimile of a $20,000 check.

Altice was introduced as the winner of a scholarship awarded annually by the Don Holliday Memorial Foundation and administered by the Roanoke Valley Golf Hall of Fame. She will attend Virginia Tech.

"This was a no-brainer," committee Chairman Brandon LaCroix said, "In the past, we've had candidates with more of an involvement with golf, but we were thrilled to be able to help her.

"She presented herself better than anyone, her credentials were outstanding, and then there was her story."

Altice was accompanied Wednesday by her father, John, and younger brother Jonathan, an eighth-grader. Their mother left the family 14 years ago.

Years later, in April 2006, the Altice family had just returned from an afternoon shopping trip when Jonathan thought he smelled smoke at their Vinton home.

"He got our dog and ran outside," said Amber, who was not home when the fire started. "In 15 minutes, the whole house was gone."

Amber said she returned home "in time to see my bedroom fall through the floor."

Investigators said the fire started when vapors from a gasoline can came into contact with the pilot light of a hot water heater.

If the fire would have happened just hours later, Amber said she would have likely been in a deep sleep and would have probably died.

John, who operates Custom Cleaning Services Inc., had the house rebuilt on its original site.

"It's a very beautiful house," Amber said, "but last year we had to sell it. My dad had remarried and it was part of the divorce settlement with my stepmother."

Since then, the Altices have rented in Vinton.

Just coping with the setbacks would have been admirable, but Amber has thrived. Her 4.05 grade-point average ranks her as one of the valedictorians at William Byrd High School and she thinks her last "B" was in the fourth grade.

Altice is a recreational golfer and usually plays at Brookside, a par-3 course off Williamson Road, but she starts at third base for the William Byrd softball team, which begins play Wednesday in the Blue Ridge District tournament.

She was a pitcher for most of her first three years at Byrd but had no problem moving to third because it enabled a younger, promising player to get in the lineup.

It's called perspective.

Amber didn't have an unhappy childhood, "but it was harder than some, never having a mother to teach you how to paint your nails or to go shopping with you," she said.

"When we'd go to public places, I'd have to go to the bathroom alone. My mother couldn't take me. She wasn't there for my first day of kindergarten."

John Altice was like father and mother, Amber said, but he had help. Family friends Sandra and Wayne Webb attended Monday's ceremony at 419 West, as did Amber's paternal grandparents.

"That girl has been amazing," said John Altice of his daughter, who volunteers at the Red Cross, not forgetting the assistance provided by that organization after the fire.

"Do you know, she started doing her own laundry in the third grade? Through my mistakes, she's just overcome."

Mistakenly or not, he's been involved.

"What people don't know is, we've stayed up till 3 o'clock in the morning doing homework, not that I was much help," he said. "By seventh grade, she was already smarter than me.

"I was just there to hold her hand when she cried."