“My grandfather got my dad into cars at a very young age. He restored British sports cars called Triumphs and he passed that love of cars down to my dad and eventually to my grandmother once they got married, so I grew up as a lifetime member of this club called the Triumph Club.
I grew up going to these club meetings and regional events my entire life and I just stuck with it.

Two big moments come to mind, and one is my first time racing in a regional event in my grandfather’s car. My first time racing was at Boerne two or three years ago. I got women’s fastest time of the day. After all of my runs were done, my dad looked to me and he said that my grandfather would be so proud. It was that moment that really connected me [not only] to my dad, but also to my grandfather.

The other big moment was when I got my own car, Herald, and I started the restoration project with my dad. We’re almost done with that now, and so all of those moments working on the car, like pulling the engine out with a steel chain or our trip to Oklahoma City to get help rebuilding a new engine, have been really great.

During Grease, my Herald was supposed to be [used as] Greased Lightnin’ in the show. They reworked the set proportions to fit the car onto the set. It was just a shell of a car, but it looked really nice. Unfortunately, there was no way to get the car into the building, so we ended up doing a car show before the final showing and we got all these pictures and stuff with the cast and the crew in my car.

I remember the first meeting. Since I was a crew head, I had to be at the tech meetings. They were talking about this car that they got, and I remember seeing pictures of it. It was rusted, it was in two parts, it was the most disgusting car you’ve ever seen. I very quickly was like, ‘I have a car. I’ll let you use my car, if you please, for the love of God, do not use this car.’ If we had used the original car they had, it would have been horrendous. It was the least safe car I’ve ever seen in my life. I’ve seen cars on fire, I’ve seen cars flipped over and I would rather be in those cars than in the original car [for Grease]. I’m honestly not sure if I wouldn’t have gotten as deeply into theatre otherwise.

My love for theater and classic cars have definitely enhanced my high school experience. Being able to expand my friend group and talent set, I wouldn’t have gotten without being in theater. My love of cars really got me into engineering and that’s what set me on my path for civil engineering along with architecture, which I’m going to double major in college.

Being able to experience both of those sides of me in high school has helped me guide what exactly I want for my future, and that’s taking the architecture and the technical side from theater and the engineering side from cars.”