Junior Ruthie Bray has planned for this next year in high school to be her most ambitious and busy yet.
While she’s been involved in extracurricular activities, like rowing and art club, since sophomore year, she has recently taken on wrestling and leading the trumpet section in Wind Ensemble. As she’s participated in many different clubs, sports, and electives, she’s noticed they all have their own unique circles with varying cultures.
“There’s lots of different little communities,” Ruthie said. “Forest Hills Central as a whole community is amazing, but there are different groups. Each sports team has a different vibe [to it].”
Within each, a culture has been fostered, depending on what connects everyone; the basketball team, which Ruthie quit last year, gave her a more immediate, surface-level relationship with her team while other sports granted her a deeper connection. The one she’s most fond of is undoubtedly the crew team. In contrast to other school communities she’s been a part of, crew has been the most special and meaningful to her.
“Rowing is more quiet [and] laid back,” Ruthie said. “And then [it’s also] really open; I’ve cried with my rowing teammates multiple times. It’s [definitely] less loud than [the basketball team].”
This deep, personal bond with her crewmates is what has kept her attracted to the sport. Even when everyone’s tired from practice, and even when all most of them want to do is go home, the kinship she’s formed with her team forces her to push through and keep smiling.
While the crew team has kept her entertained, Ruthie decided to start wrestling this fall as well. Intimidated and a little nervous at first, she was uncertain about what wrestling someone else would really be like.
“[The transition from basketball to wrestling] has been interesting,” Ruthie said. “I did basketball, which is somewhat of a contact sport, but wrestling is just full-on. I was kind of scared because I thought [we were] going to be [really] fighting each other, but there’s safety regulations and [things like that].”
From the outside, a physical sport like wrestling can definitely seem scary. However, as an active participant, she has found it to be just the opposite. Especially considering the girls’ wrestling team and its size of less than five people, everyone is more close-knit in comparison to other sports teams that can have more than 20 players.
This packed schedule–featuring two sports, a club, and two music ensembles–may sound unpleasant to some, but Ruthie has found a way to balance it all. Specifically, she has been learning to lead the art club.
“I thought I was going to have this whole plan for the entire year and go off of that,” Ruthie said. “But, really, it’s just been every week I come up with a new little activity. People [will] show up, and I’ll say what I was planning to do, but [they] can also [continue] whatever art project they’ve been working on.”
The art club, which Ruthie is the current president of, is not like a structured school-run sport but is largely spontaneous and meetings consist of casual conversations accompanied by small art projects.
One such art project is the murals that decorate the brick walls of the media center.
The paintings featured in the school library were done by the art club, many of them being inspired by literature that can be found on the very shelves that surround the murals. Ruthie, who collaborated with a few other art club members on her mural, found it to be a unique experience that incorporated both art and teamwork.
“I [participated in] art club for the first time last year,” Ruthie said. “That was really fun when we did the murals in the library. [I worked on] the inside of the [Little Red Riding Hood-themed] window.”
Sadly, because of the upcoming construction project, the high school will be undergoing, new murals would be redundant as they would only last a few months, likely to be torn down or painted over.
Apart from being president of the club, she also engages in other art forms: she heads the trumpets in Wind Ensemble as section leader and also plays multiple percussion instruments in her regular band class.
“I love the band. They’re crazy people, but I love them, and I love the music,” Ruthie said. “The band [members] are troublemakers sometimes, but in a fun way. Each section will spend more time together, [and] I have a lot of friends in my section.”
As the stereotype goes, band kids can be loud and a little eccentric, but still have the capacity to come together and use their talents to make great music, as well as making for great companions.
Although Ruthie is unlike some people her age who have everything planned out and have their dream college and lifelong career lined up, she finds joy in living in the moment and preparing herself for life after high school the best she can.
“It’s a tight schedule, but I make it work,” Ruthie said. “I like to say to myself: wrestling practice and rowing practice, that’s my break. [It’s] what I would do anyway [in my free time]. And that’s what’s fun [for] me.”
