LEADING THE WAY
It’s hard to keep up with Winston Moore, even when school is out. As his spring semester was finishing up (with two wins at the state track and field championship), preparation for fall football was about to begin. An accomplished athlete, Moore somehow finds time to compete at a high level in two sports, serve as an athlete representative to the student council, and balance classes at Mary Institute and Saint Louis Country Day School.
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A highlight of Moore’s high school football career came during his freshman year, when he helped lead the team to victory over John Burroughs, where his brothers attended. “That was a big moment for me,” Moore says.
It hasn’t all been easy. He started sophomore year in 2020 with a fall season that had been shortened by the pandemic and a dislocated elbow that put his future with football in doubt. “That was the first thing on my mind,” he says of the moments after the injury. “I was thinking about my future.” Although it ended his season, the injury healed, and by 2021, he was able to play again.
Moore chose MICDS because it had a family feel when he visited. Each summer, the football team hosts an event in which the team stays at the school for a few days, practicing, eating together, and spending downtime as a group to build camaraderie. The school also emphasizes mentorship of younger players. Moore looks forward to summer football camps, where he coaches younger students.
Now, Moore is considering his future. He hopes to play football in college and possibly beyond. No matter what happens, though, sports have already played a key role in his development. Athletics have taught him to be a leader on and off the field: “It’s played a big part, there and in the real world.”
EXPANDING HORIZONS
Last spring, Nikki Nguyen introduced the first-ever Lunar New Year celebration to her high school, Rosati-Kain High School. With Diversity Club, an organization she’ll help lead as co-president this year, she strives to enrich her school community by bringing people from a range of backgrounds and traditions to the fore.
When she walked on stage to present the customs of her Vietnamese family’s Lunar New Year celebration, she was nervous about how it might be received. But she loves the holiday, “maybe even more than Christmas,” she says, and wanted to share it with others. In addition to her slideshow, the event featured a fashion show, a traditional lion dance, and celebratory snacks. Nguyen was overwhelmed with the positive feedback. The club also held a program for Hispanic Heritage Month and fundraised with local nonprofit Better Family Life for Black History Month.
As the club seeks to amplify the voices and stories of diverse groups in St. Louis, Nguyen approaches it with a spirit of celebration. “When you think about social change and activism, there’s a focus on negativity,” she says, “but you also have to focus on the joy that these communities go through.”
Nguyen is busy with far more than Diversity Club. She’s on the student council, in Service Club, plays lacrosse, and helps with the tennis team and school plays. But Diversity Club has impacted her the most, she says, and will likely play a role as she considers colleges and careers.
“It’s shaped my high school experience,” Nguyen says. “I’ve gotten to learn about so many different perspectives and backgrounds, not just within my high school community but also within the outside one.”
CRACKING THE CODE
When Bella Ott visited Ursuline Academy to decide whether she wanted to attend high school there, she shadowed a student who was a programmer on the robotics team. That’s what I want to do in high school, she recalls thinking. Since then, programming has become a big part of her high school career, and Ursuline’s Robotics Team is at the center. In fact, Ott hopes to someday become a programmer focused on cybersecurity. (She’s already learned eight coding languages.)
One of only a few all-female robotics squads in the region, the team competes in two tournaments per year. Six weeks before the event, the team is given a challenge and then works furiously on a design until the contest. The 10 team members divvy up roles, from programming to mechanical and electrical engineering to safety captain to scouting the competition.
Ott says the experience has taught her organizational and communication skills. The team must work together in person and online, keeping organized through spreadsheets and Slack messages. But there’s plenty of fun along the way, too: late nights, out-of-town travel, and nicknames.
According to Ott, the tournaments are also more cooperative than you might expect; teams even share tools with opponents. “Even though it’s a competition, it doesn’t feel like a competition,” she says. “It’s more like teams collaborate and help each other do these tasks well.”
SCULPTING A FUTURE
Growing up with theater-loving parents, Nick Merlo always thought he’d be involved on the stage. But when he went to high school at Crossroads College Preparatory School, he decided to take a break from performing and use his knowledge of theater in a new way. He’s now creative director for makeup for the stage productions at Crossroads.
With the small class sizes at the school (Merlo estimates he’ll graduate with a class of 21), students have great responsibility in their roles. His vision for one musical, You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown, was inspired by ’60s fashion magazines and the look of Twiggy, with huge eyelashes and exaggerated features to match the comic characters in the show. The design for the Little Shop of Horrors production’s look took a cue from ’90s L.A. style, complete with frosted eyelids.
Mentoring younger students is part of the model at Crossroads. When Merlo was a freshman, a senior taught him makeup skills. Now, as he starts his senior year, Merlo is looking to pass on his knowledge in the same way to younger students.
At this point, Merlo isn’t sure what he’ll do in his career: He loves both STEM and creative subjects, but he has a desire to study sculptural art. Even though it’s a different medium, he looks at his work in theater makeup as related to this pursuit. “Makeup,” he says, “is really like sculpture of the face.”
SERVING THE COMMUNITY
JD Masson’s long list of extracurricular activities might seem scattered: National Honor Society, lacrosse team, Student Ambassadors, Letterman’s Club, Griffin Guides, U.S. Naval Sea Cadets, volunteering at Special Olympics and blood drives… But there’s a thread that unites them all.
Masson is invested in making his community a better place. St. John Vianney High School, where Masson is starting his senior year, has a motto: “Men of Character and Accomplishment.” Those words inspire him, he says.
Next year, Masson will serve as president of Vianney’s Letterman’s Club, an organization for student athletes that’s designed to build spirit in the school and give back to the larger community. When the pandemic led to the cancellation of sporting events and school programs, the club’s membership dwindled. Masson set out to rebuild it. “We wanted to get the message out that we are here for the betterment of the community and every sports team,” he says. That’s how Masson found himself waking early one Saturday morning to drive an hour and a half to watch a Vianney cross-country student’s 8 a.m. race, after hearing the runner say fans rarely attended meets.
Time management is key for Masson. He thinks about a future when he can relax and enjoy his hobbies of hunting and fishing, but for now, he wants to provide others with the support that he’s received: “What motivates me is the idea of being able to make a difference, not just for the school, but for people outside the school too.”
BRINGING IDEAS TO LIFE
Camille Smith remembers one particularly magical day during her freshman year when she and a few friends were in the art room working on self-portraits. They stayed after school into the evening, listening to music, talking, and painting alongside one another—but she never finished that self-portrait.
It was spring 2020. The pandemic cut short the
project, the semester, and her entire first year of high school. Despite that detour, Smith has made the most of her time as a high-schooler by becoming an accomplished artist.
At John Burroughs School, Smith has tried painting, drawing, ceramics, photography, and printmaking. “It allows an outlet for me to be creative, outside of academics,” she says. “You can’t be stuck using only one side of your brain.” As a senior, she’ll participate in a yearlong intensive art program that will culminate in a gallery exhibition.
Fashion design is another outlet. Her grandmother originally taught her to sew at age 8, but Burroughs offered a sewing class that furthered her ability to bring her ideas to life. Last year, she started the Fashion Club, with plans to hold a Met Gala–themed show at the school in the fall.
Smith hopes to pursue a career in architecture or design but says making art will always be a part of her life, regardless of her career path. It’s “a break in my day,” she says, “to just go into the studio and create.”
