My name is Tyler Ortigo and I lost my dad to pancreatic cancer. He got diagnosed when I was just in 4th grade and he went through a 13 hour surgery to get his pancreas removed, but by the time they got to it, the cancer had already spread and had spots in his liver. I would like to say that it didn't slow him down much. At first he just had to take pills with his meals and he lived 7 years after the diagnoses even though the doctor only gave him 3 months. And I've just been chugging along ever since. But there was no rest for us after the diagnoses we only had three months until my grandmother died, and this really set off just a wave of death in my family. At the hight of covid my grandfather had a stroke and died of pneumonia and then a year late my other grandmother died of heartbreak. So there I was in 7th grade all of my grandparents were already dead, my father had cancer and his stomach has now decided that it cant empty. It eventually got so bad that he had to get a bag that fed him straight into his intestine so that he didn't have to use his stomach. But at that point I would still like to say that he didn't slow down. One thing you have to know about my parents is that they were really old when I was born dad was already 48 and my mom was 42. Which explains why all my grandparents died so fast, but it doesn't explain why Dad's only sister and his youngest brother died 4 and 9 months after their mother. This is where I say the decline begins. Dad starts to get to where he can't hardly walk anymore and I have to help him in and out of the wheel chair and the car. And one day while I was at church camp his heart had just give out. That's the end of his story. Since he died I have been the all district right guard twice and one two football state championships, I was the Drum major in my marching band, and I have done NHS, UIL, FFA, basketball, shot put, discus, and I will have 38 college credits when I graduate high school. I am planning on attending Texas A&M when I get out of high school and I plan on getting a degree in AG business. But it will allways be insane to me how cancer in someone else affected my life so greatly.

The sports I play/ played are football, basketball, shot put, and discus. Balancing sports and school work is very difficult in my town. Our school has had 11 state championships in football in the last 18 years and in the last two of them I was the starting right guard. For me what was hardest about the balance with sports was all the other things that I do. I could generally get my school work done it was really just making sure I could still attend band practice ,since I was the drum major, and being able to perform well on both sides. Football is super demanding and very mentally draining, and the process of going though that day in and day out for 20 weeks was so exhausting. However, the people around me were very understanding and my coaches and directors, who do tend to feud some, were gracious enough to allow me to do both the whole time. I also think that I lied earlier, because it wasn't as big of a problem until these last couple years. But something that really disrupted my balance was the fact that I started taking college classes. By the time I graduate Highschool I will have 38 credit hours. I am sure that you could imagine how many classes 38 hours while in high school, while doing as many extra curriculars you could. This year especially, I have had 4 college classes bot semesters on top of my 5 regular classes at the high school. This was where it got hard, because each class truly required at least 6 hours a week of studying, and it got the the point where i really felt like I had no time to myself between doing all my sports and doing my academics and music and clubs. I think that i Have pretty well said my spill on what I have done to balance school and sports. This scholarship would help me a lot in college and be a reminder and somewhat of a reward of the tings that I accomplished in high school. Doing as many extra curriculars as I have also taught me a lot about being responsible and doing what has to be done when it needs to be done and that I simply can not procrastinate anything. When something needs to be done it has to get done. And I have to be the one to do it.