I was a horn player in the GDYO Philharmonic Orchestra, where I gathered with young musicians from the DFW area to rehearse weekly at the Sammons Center for the Arts. This is the most competitive youth orchestra in Dallas, and it was a big goal of mine to make one of their ensembles while in high school. I auditioned for the first time at the end of my sophomore year, but didn't end up being placed in an ensemble. I realized then that I wasn't really trying out because it was what I wanted to do, but rather because I thought peope expected me to. Going into my senior year, I auditioned again with a completely different mindset and ended up making it into an ensemble. I have had the time of my life getting to play challenging literature in beautiful concert halls. I am so glad that I persevered and earned this opportunity through my hard work and practice.

I joined the Hebron Hawk Eye Newspaper at the start of my junior year because I wanted to tell meaningful stories and use my creativity to create strong writing and visual imagery. As a member of the staff, I designed a cover and two pages in Adobe InDesign and Procreate for our print editions, wrote a staff editorial, reported on sports and news events, shared entertainment, opinion, and multimedia stories, and designed merchandise for the entire staff. I conducted over 50 interviews and adhered to six three-week publishing cycles. I loved getting to analyze what was happening behind-the-scenes in my community and help shed light on current events. I learned lots about writing and editing copy, as well as an entirely new writing style. One of my photographs even went on to win first place at the state ILPC Journalism Convention for the "Online Newspaper: Portrait" category. Learning how to interview people also helped me refine my communication skills and become more comfortable networking with strangers.

I started Captured by Aves after voluntarily shooting a wedding and wedding shower at the age of 11. I fell in love with capturing experiences and milestones through my point of view and sharing them with the world, so I decided to continue taking pictures! I learned how to operate a DSLR camera, edit photos in Adobe Lightroom, and teach people how to pose. I have done all kinds of photoshoots, including seniors, formal photos, professional headshots, weddings, and events. I plan to explore new styles of photography during my time at UT Austin.

Pam Boronski is a decorated DFW realtor that has served my neighborhood and surrounding communities for over two decades. I started working for her as a graphic designer last summer, where I met with her weekly and utilized the Canva app to create Instagram posts, reels, and postcards. After working for her for a while, I took on the role of social media manager, where I oversaw her posting schedule and online engagement. This was a great opportunity for me to learn how to cater to the needs of my employer and deliver content in a timely manner.

As I transitioned from elementary to middle school, toy slime became a very popular trend. The demand was high for the product and I loved everything about it, so I decided to start my own toy slime business. I created a website to sell my products, grew my Instagram to a following of over 3300 people, managed bi-weekly product restocks, and designed, marketed, manufactured, packaged, and delivered my custom products. I networked with other growing sellers through PR packages and giveaways and I sold my products at a convention in Tampa, Florida, called Slime Rodeo on the Bay. While this business was very time consuming, it was a very unique and creative way for me to spend my time during middle school.

I was Co-President of Hands of Hope (HOH), a club that pairs high school students and elementary school students with each other to be penpals for the year. HOH is one of the largest organizations at Hebron High School with over 200 members and is growing more and more every year. I joined Hands of Hope as a sophomore at the end of the pandemic, so instead of penpal journals, we were sending videos to elementary classes and writing letters to people in nursing homes. I oversaw videography and content creation for this year and the start of my junior year. As the need for videos lessened, I started my role as Historian for the club, where I documented our meetings through meeting notes and photographs. Going into my senior year, I knew how much this club meant to me and how much I cared about providing a support system for young kids, so I ran for Co-President with my friend, Jose Gallegos. In this role, I have overseen communications between the elementary schools, facilitated pick-up and delivery schedules, managed our club shirt ordering, planned our involvement in campus events, implemented an online journal proofreading system, met frequently with our officer team, and organized our end of year field trip to meet and spend time with the kids we have been writing to. This club is truly something special and I felt so lucky to help make it happen.

The best way I can sum up my time in the Hebron Band is that I've practically lived here for the past four years. I started on our media team as a designer my freshman year, where I learned how to design with Canva and wrote captions for social media posts. I got more into graphic design my sophomore year and started to contribute more designs to our online presence. I served the french horn section as a squad leader my junior year, which is essentially an officer that works with the section leader to help grow the section and make things run smoothly. I started doing more flyer designs, photography, and video work for the band during this year, and even designed merchandise for our trip to San Antonio as the TMEA Honor Band. I ran AV for our end-of-year band banquet event as well, managing music, entertainment, and presentations for the night. As a senior in the band program, I am currently serving as the media team chief creative officer, band officer, and section leader. As the CCO of the media team, I oversee everything that our team does and manage our organization's online presence. I mentor underclassmen and show them what I've learned so that the team can be successful when I am not there. As a band officer, the second highest leadership position one can hold while still marching an instrument (aside from drum major/conducting), I help manage everything that goes on behind the scenes of our program. I meet weekly with the other band officers, drum majors, and our head director, to create a plan of action for our rehearsals, set goals for our program, create gifts for our neighboring schools, plan events and fundraisers for the band, and organize a penpal system between our feeder elementary school eighth-graders and our current band members. Being a band officer has given me a chance to use my insight to benefit our program and learn how to communicate with those in charge. As the section leader for the horn section this year, I planned rehearsal goals, organized warm-ups, sent out reminders, held section meetings to keep each other accountable, designed sweatpants and shirts for our section, designed and painted locker decorations, and managed our social media accounts. This has by far been my favorite role because seeing the impact I have made on other kids just by being a strong, but understanding, leader has been really special. I earned the Most Improved Musician award for our top ensemble and the Outstanding Soloist award for our district solo contest during my junior and senior years. I have been a member of the All-Region Band from 10-12 grade and advanced to the Area level my senior year. My band medaled at the UIL State Marching Band Championship every year that I have been in the program, we won the Texas Music Educators Association (TMEA) 6A Honor Band title and performed at the 2023 convention to a completely full audience, and we marched in the 2022 Rose Parade in Pasadena California. I have grown into myself as a person, musician, and leader during my time in the Hebron Band while also having opportunities to explore my creative passions. I am forever grateful for the opportunities this program has provided for me.

Cozy Crates is a non-profit organization that my friend, Lily Falconer, started after experiencing the devastating impact of a hurricane. Their organization provides care packages to hurricane relief centers for victims of hurricanes in the United States. I reached out to Lily while I was in newspaper to write a story on the organization. After the story did well, I joined their team as their marketing strategist and photographer, where I helped write press releases, photograph events, take professional headshots of the team, and improve their website to foster engagement. I really resonate with their focus on giving children and families a support system during such a difficult time, and it meant a lot to be able to help represent what they're advocating for and see the impact that their organization has on the world.

I was nominated for the Principal's Advisory Council (PAC) by my Hands of Hope club sponsor to be the representative for our organization. PAC is a council of 45 other senior leaders that was started during the pandemic to address issues going on at our school and grow our leadership within our organizations. Through PAC, I have been able to advocate for my senior class of over 900 individuals. I have also gotten the chance to participate in leadership masterclasses, where I have learned about effective versus ineffective strategies. I also learned my top five Clifton Strengths, which are "strategic, arranger, individualization, relator, and achiever." Learning how to utilize these strengths has helped me in all other aspects of my life. I have included short explanations of three of these on my resume.

I joined Visual Design Club my senior year to familiarize myself with the Adobe Suite before heading off to college. I got very comfortable with Adobe Illustrator and started learning Photoshop during my time in the club. Our club solicited design work to organizations on campus and provided me with a small community of passionate designers to work with. This club is what helped me transition from using Canva to working with more universal design softwares.

As a two-year member of the National Honor Society (NHS), I have contributed over 100 service hours to help my school community. I ran point-of-sale systems for campus events, interacted with and catered to the needs of visiting educators for fine arts competitions, and aided in planning and photographing the annual Hebron Band Golf Tournament for two years. Being a part of NHS gave me an opportunity to give back to the people and groups in my community that have provided so much for me.