Some people find their purpose as children, others in high school. For most, it’s later in life.

For the owner of Gym South, who took over the operation in June, she found her purpose when the gymnastic, cheer and tumbling business became hers. She had actually found it when she started taking classes at the gym at age 7, she said, but it would just take her a little while to figure that out.

“I never knew what I wanted to do. I was stressed about that, but then this fell in my lap,” Kayla Stuckey, who now owns Gym South with husband Josh, said. “Ms. Cherry (Cherry Robins, the former owner) said she wanted to retire but wanted to pass this on to somebody who loved it and somebody that she had taught. It was definitely a God-thing. It’s what I was supposed to do.”

After taking over in June, Stuckey said not much has changed for the 108 students at the gym—the building, the equipment and programs are the same.

She and five other teachers teach more than 15 classes that range from beginner to competition teams, spanning from those barely potty trained to those in high school.

“The beginning classes are huge because of the Olympics,” she said. “Everybody wants to be in the Olympics, which is good for us.”

The boom from the Olympics corresponds nicely with her main goal as new owner: expanding the gym “to 200-plus kids.”

“I want more people to know more about it and get their kids involved,” she said, noting the Olympics boom has already caused her to start the search for another beginner class coach to try to reduce the 14 students in some of the classes. “That’s a lot of little kids running around, especially if they’re in preschool.”

Class options span from tumbling classes for toddlers to competitive classes for high school seniors with prices ranging from $60 per month for the lowest skill levels to $235 for the highest. “We just want to get our name out there,” she said. And after finding her purpose, she said she hopes to help her students finds theirs as well—at least relating to gymnastics. “They get so excited when they learn something new and get it right,” she said. “We want them to want to get better, to want to go as far as they can in gymnastics.”