I have always had a love for theatre. My mom first introduced me to acting when I was just five and since then I have continued to grow and love theatre even more. As of April, 2026 I have acted in 22 shows and been a technician for 5. And I am planning on being a technician for my local children’s theatre this summer. For me, theatre has been more than a hobby. It is a giant part of who I am. I started out in a local community theatre called The Old Barn where I met so many new people and learned how to act with their help. Many life long friendships stretched because of theatre. As I grew older my focus turned to the technical side of theatre, the tiny details and all the work that goes on behind the scenes that bring the show to life. I was lucky enough to know a director of a children's theatre and was able to explore technical theatre and how to build stories through their shows. I have learned so much from every single show and workshop. Not only how to be a technician or an actor but also how to communicate and connect with others. I have also been very involved in my high school drama program and I actively participated every single year. For my senior year, I applied and was accepted into the theatre council as the assistant director. This was a big responsibility for me as it put me in charge of our murder mystery fundraiser dinner. I was in charge of writing an improv script, casting, and directing the show. I got to learn what it is like to be a director and how to communicate ideas with others. I was very grateful for my cast who supported me the whole way and helped the show be amazing. We were able to have a successful fundraiser in the end, thanks to all those in our program who assisted. I also got the chance to go to region for theatre, I participated in the musical theatre and costume design categories. I won second place for my costumes and made it to state in both categories. Seeing how my hard work paid off was so rewarding, I can't wait to improve. As I came closer to graduating from high school, I began to have trouble deciding what I want to do with my life. Picking a major was super stressful. As I thought about my likes and hobbies, my thoughts kept circling back to stories, and how much I enjoyed every tiny detail added to make it so much deeper. I knew I wanted to give something like that to my community and have my work out in the world. Now I am going to Utah State to get a BFA for technical theatre arts. I am so excited to start learning more about technical theatre and become better at the art. As I look at the class requirements for this major I get more and more excited to go to college. My dream is to someday become a director for some professional theatre. Theatre has given me the creativity, tools and passion to pursue this major, and I can’t wait to see what other places it takes me throughout my life.

I didn’t expect my Spanish class to be the place where I learned what it felt like to be defended, understood, and accepted. But in sixth grade, one of the hardest years of school for me, it became the place where I did. This was the year when the pandemic shut down everything including school. Right before that I had caught a nasty case of bronchitis. I was already missing so much school and falling behind quickly. I was finally able to make it to one day of school, about three days before the shut down, because my cough was not as bad that morning. Sadly the respite did not last, by the time I had made it to my first Spanish class of the day, the cough had come back. I was trying my best to cover and silence it as I did not like all the attention I was drawing. My teacher, though, was so kind and thoughtful. He left the room to go get me some water after some cough drops weren’t working. He was gone for a very long time, and in his absence another teacher walked by our classroom and started yelling at me because I was disrupting the class with my coughing and how I should leave the room to cough. I was so embarrassed and was on the verge of tears, when unexpectedly, a voice called the teacher out. The rest of the class joined in, telling her to leave me alone. I had never felt so loved and accepted by those members of the class. Looking back this moment, I now realize that this has shaped a lot of who I am. I learned that there are more people than I expect will be there to back me up and that I don’t have to struggle through anything alone. Even though I was stuck at home an extra three weeks before quarantine, I had that small bit of knowledge that I could reach out to anyone in my DLI classes and they would be there for me. This is also where I learned that most people you meet don’t know what is going on in your life and only care about theirs. For all I know, the teacher who yelled at me was probably worried about the health of her own family and about the nearing pandemic, so I shouldn’t blame her for feeling the need to try and educate me on proper health etiquette. But now this has taught me to take other people’s lives into consideration before making wild assumptions because I know how it feels to be unfairly called out. While writing this I also realized how amazing of a Spanish teacher I had. At the moment I thought he was just running down to the office to get a pack of water bottles, but now that I think about it, he took way too long for a run to the office and must have actually gone to a store and bought a pack of water bottles specifically to help me. There were many other experiences like this during my journey through the Dual Language Immersion program that built my character and who I am today. Because I was given this chance long before I knew its significance, I was able to shape and build myself into the person I have become. I hope to continue to use these experiences in my college life and every community I join to support others and help create spaces where everyone can feel valued.

Asbestos is still very present in my town and the one right next to it, Tremonton and Garland, because of the abundance of old buildings in our community. An example of the asbestos present is the auditorium of my high school, Bear River High School. There is a fire curtain purely made of it. Though asbestos usually isn’t a problem if covered and maintained, this curtain is not covered and is visible if one looks up. Because of the age of our rigging system, there are times that the curtain will sink down from the ceiling. There have also been incidents where unaware students messing around in the auditorium have lowered the curtain not knowing the dangers. My goal is to find a safe way to remove the fire curtain made of asbestos in the high school auditorium to prevent problems in the future. My director at my high school motivated me to solve this problem. She makes sure that the students are aware of the danger and how best to avoid it. It has become a running joke in the theatre department to highlight how little money we have and how old the building is. As this is a more rural area, it is more difficult to solve this problem. As someone who spends a lot of time in the auditorium, with many other students, and as someone who sits on the theatre council, I feel as though it is my responsibility to help the department as much as possible. So far, I have created a plan to get rid of this curtain and spread more awareness around my community about our asbestos problem, with the help of a close friend. We wrote up a document highlighting each step of our plan, and created a video to spread awareness. We began outlining fundraisers to raise the money to get rid of it, so that our school board will be more willing to remove the curtain as they will not have to find the funds. We also initiated discussions about the best schedule and times to hire abatement team workers to remove it that will cause the least amount of disruption of learning. If this project succeeds, it will greatly benefit our community. It would remove a cancer hazard from our school and make it safer for all students and teachers in the building.