Susan Simon Leadership Award

My coach asks if I’m okay as I lie down in the weak shade of the bushes by the trail. Through strained breaths, I tell him I’ll be alright. To 13-year-old me, this new thing was harder than anything else I’d ever tried - and I loved it. From my first rides as a freshman to now my final season, any story about my time in high school is incomplete without mountain biking. Along with a handful of medals, my progression in the sport brought along significant personal growth. The wide-eyed ninth-grader who joined the mountain bike club to get himself some friends and a bit of active time has become a senior who has to manage his time between music, riding, theater, volunteering, and photography. On the mountain bike team, I’ve been able to use my skills to build up and grow with the newer riders. When the coaches need someone to show a less experienced athlete how to perform a new move on a challenging trail, I am always up for the task. Too, whenever someone needs a ride to a race or home from practice, I drive them whenever I can. Through it all, I’ve tried to be there for my teammates in any way possible. In the SRRHS orchestra, I've gotten a platform for a more artistic leadership role. As the section leader for the contrabass players, I experience a new sort of satisfaction. When my section mates come to me about a passage or intonation that they're struggling with, it makes my day to walk through it with them. In a piece we're learning for our upcoming concert, called "The Waltz of the Wicked," I remember a passage that was trouble for me and my section mates. One day, our conductor splits up the orchestra by section and allows the respective leaders to take over. First thing I do is check in with my section mates, and we agree where to start. We run through the trouble spot over and over, and we give each other individual tips each time. The music we created wasn't just beautiful because of the notes on the page, but because the final product took teamwork. Now that I’m going into college, I won’t have those same classmates to grow with. In my new adult years, I have to focus on the bigger picture too. My major is electrical engineering, and I want to use it to bring happiness to the world - I want to design speakers, amplifiers, and all the other interconnected systems that define how recorded music reaches human ears. To bring people together - through music, mountain biking, or whatever it takes - is my life goal.