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2024 Cabrillo High School graduate Wesley Marrs holds this year’s Renaissance Award joined by his father Dorin Marrs and mother Abbi Marrs. The award is presented to a student who displays the most “grit and tenacity in bettering themselves and their education.”
Head student curators Joanne Cacho, left, and Wesley Marrs, right, of Cabrillo High stand with Santa Barbara County 4th District Supervisor Bob Nelson in August 2023, after giving a presentation during a hearing on Coastal Resource Mitigation Fund grant allocations. As a result of the presentation, Cabrillo High School’s aquarium program was awarded $100,000 for its Cal Coastal Wetlands exhibit.
Wesley Marrs, 18, graduated in a memorable sendoff ceremony on June 7 and will take what he’s gleaned at Cabrillo High School and head to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in the fall, where he intends to study journalism, with a focus on sports.
SYV Lifestyles Editor
2024 Cabrillo High School graduate Wesley Marrs holds this year’s Renaissance Award joined by his father Dorin Marrs and mother Abbi Marrs. The award is presented to a student who displays the most “grit and tenacity in bettering themselves and their education.”
Editor’s Note: Additional profiles on local high school graduates will appear in next week’s June 26 Lompoc Record.
Thanks to lessons learned in sports and school clubs, 2024 Cabrillo High graduate Wesley Marrs is ready to face the future.
“Any opportunity I got, I jumped in,” Marrs said, remembering the valuable lessons in team building he learned in sports and the public-facing role he played as the head curator for the Cabrillo High School Aquarium his senior year that enabled him to overcome what was once a major hurdle.
“I’ve never really struggled in the classroom, but I’ve always had trouble talking to people,” he said. “I was always a little nervous and shy.”
That all started to shift the more involved on campus he became.
“Being head curator at the aquarium helped me,” Marrs said of the campus marine biology program he commanded this last year.
Marrs joined the program in his sophomore year and slowly worked out of his shell, especially once he was put in charge of the aquarium’s water quality program.
He found comfort in discussing a topic he was well-versed in, a technique that served as a bridge to facing his fear of talking to people, namely to the public during quarterly aquarium open houses.
Wesley Marrs, 18, graduated in a memorable sendoff ceremony on June 7 and will take what he’s gleaned at Cabrillo High School and head to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in the fall, where he intends to study journalism, with a focus on sports.
Working up to his senior year, Marrs said he was given the opportunity to train program fledglings.
“To go from someone who was in my shell — not willing to express myself, to being a role model to some kids on campus,” is a major victory, Marrs said. “I’m a lot different a person than I was even from last year.”
Marrs also stayed active by participating in football in his first two years of high school and tennis in his junior and senior years.
While in football, he learned how to effectively be a team player, a skill which carried over to tennis, where in his senior year he was named team captain.
Further, in a display of perseverance, Marrs recalled that in the last doubles match in his tennis tournament in late April, he suffered a high-ankle sprain. Instead of clamming up, he pushed through the pain to finish the game and moved on to Round 3.
As an extension of that perseverance, Marrs also leveled up in public speaking, having addressed the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors last year about the aquarium’s funding needs for a planned three-phase Cal Coastal Wetlands exhibit.
Head student curators Joanne Cacho, left, and Wesley Marrs, right, of Cabrillo High stand with Santa Barbara County 4th District Supervisor Bob Nelson in August 2023, after giving a presentation during a hearing on Coastal Resource Mitigation Fund grant allocations. As a result of the presentation, Cabrillo High School’s aquarium program was awarded $100,000 for its Cal Coastal Wetlands exhibit.
In-person at the Aug. 29, 2023 hearing on Coastal Resource Mitigation Fund grant allocations, Marrs, joined by co-lead curator Joanne Cacho, presented a PowerPoint before the supervisors, outlining how $100,000 could benefit the aquarium’s planned expansion.
“It was my idea to sell the idea for why they should give us the money,” Marrs said. “From a kid that was really scared of people to now — I don’t know what really happened.”
The school was awarded the grant and Marrs gained greater confidence.
“I wouldn’t be the person I am without” the program, he said, adding that program advisor and director “Mr. Ladwig and Mr. Eisen have been great role models.”
Marrs, 18, graduated in a memorable sendoff ceremony on June 7 and will take what he’s learned at Cabrillo and head to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in the fall where he intends to study journalism, with a focus on sports.
While not 100% certain about where he will land in his career, working somewhere in sports, possibly in sports management, is likely the trajectory, he said.
“If you find a passion or something you really enjoy doing, go all in,” Marrs said. “Take every opportunity given to you. Buy in and fully apply yourself. You most likely will find success.”
SYV Lifestyles Editor
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“Principal Herrera remains a District employee and, at no point, has been recommended for termination.”
Advocates say expanding voter registration will help more Black and Latino Californians have a say at the ballot box. But other voter groups say registering to vote should still be voluntary — and they don’t see the bill as an effective way to increase voter diversity.
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