{"id":13050,"date":"2020-02-19T00:03:19","date_gmt":"2020-02-19T07:03:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/?p=13050"},"modified":"2020-02-19T00:03:19","modified_gmt":"2020-02-19T07:03:19","slug":"will-penrose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/2020\/02\/19\/will-penrose\/","title":{"rendered":"WILL PENROSE"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rising to the top<\/i><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

By Eric Valentine<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"
Wood River High School senior Will Penrose. Photo credit: Jessica Jean Photography<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Rising to the top is all about drive. And Will Penrose has been making that his goal for as long as he can recall. The four-year Wood River High School soccer goalie and two-year track and field athlete hasn\u2019t let his ACL injury stop him from the competitiveness he enjoys. Instead, he transitioned into golf and tennis, and has volunteer coached a U10 soccer team since he was in the 10th grade.<\/p>\n

\u201cI enjoy the team bonding and the friendships created in all these sports,\u201d Penrose said. \u201cBut the competitive nature and the drive to be the best is truly the most fulfilling aspect of all these athletics.\u201d<\/p>\n

Penrose was born in China and adopted by Mike and Nancy Penrose when he was 5 years old. He has lived in the Valley since 2007 and has a deep appreciation for \u201cthe relationship between nature and community\u201d here.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I\u2019m going to miss though, as I leave, are the friendships and the memories made, but I\u2019m excited to create new ones and reflect on the old ones,\u201d said Penrose, who plans to attend either Western Washington University or the University of Oregon.<\/p>\n

He\u2019ll go there with goals.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy lifelong goal is to get a degree in marine biology, work out in the field making new discoveries, and from there I\u2019m not quite sure. Hopefully, expand my passion for photography and possibly get a Ph.D. in biology,\u201d Penrose said.<\/p>\n

And he\u2019ll go there prepared.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am taking A.P. Government, A.P. Physics, A.P. Biology and A.P. Calculus,\u201d Penrose said.<\/p>\n

His GPA is 4.0.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are many things I\u2019d like to change about the world, but if I had to focus on just one thing, I\u2019d like to make it more renewable\u2014fight climate change and be one of the dutiful curators of this planet, as we should be,\u201d Penrose said.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, Penrose appreciates who he is and what he has become. He takes pride in his 71-year-old dad\u2014Mike\u2014a retired pilot who can be found skiing and biking around the Valley; his mom, Nancy, who is a physical therapist at St. Luke\u2019s; and his sister, Niki, who recently graduated from Arizona State University and is now back in the Valley working on her EMD license as part of her effort to becoming a member of the ski patrol.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a community mostly made up of a Latino and Caucasian demographic, I think my ethnicity, Chinese, has brought an interesting perspective to who I\u2019ve become,\u201d Penrose observed. \u201cIt\u2019s being different that defines individuals and I feel like I\u2019ve been blessed to be quite literally different in many aspects.\u201d<\/p>\n

Editor\u2019s Note: Anyone who would like to recommend a Blaine County School District student for the Wood River Weekly\u2019s \u201cStudent Spotlight\u201d feature should contact news@woodriverweekly.com.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rising to the top By Eric Valentine Rising to the top is all about drive. And Will Penrose has been making that his goal for as long as he can recall. The four-year Wood River High School soccer goalie and two-year track and field athlete hasn\u2019t let his ACL injury stop him from the competitiveness […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13051,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[38,41],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13050","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sponsored","8":"category-student-spotlight"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13050\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}