Micheal Dee is the 2008 Gary Duenas Memorial Scholarship Winner.
Micheal will be attending UC San Diego in the fall.
The following is Micheal Dee's essay:
1) How has someone inspired you to be a better person?
I felt like I was on top of the world! I was eleven years old and I had just finished shooting my first paid commercial. I was flowing with excitement the whole time, but what made it even more special was that my father had accompanied me there, so he was able to share this seminal moment with me. Though I gained a great deal of experience in acting, auditioning, and performing during this exciting journey, I learned the most about the honorable and humble man who stood by me the entire time - my father.
From the very beginning, my dad was there to support me. Even though I had given up on many of my hobbies in the past, my dad always encouraged me to keep trying out new ones until I found one I truly loved. One day, I announced to my dad that I’d like to try acting. From the start, I’m sure he was reluctant to sign me up for classes since I had given up on all of my other “hobbies.” However, as doubtful as he was that I would persist with my new goal, he still signed me up. I’m glad he was so open-minded because acting became my forte. Slowly, my acting went from being a casual hobby to a passion, and finally, to a career, when I signed with a talent agency.
My agent would often call my father at work about an audition and he’d rush to pick me up at school and take me straight to the audition. Since my dad worked in downtown Los Angeles, he'd more often than not have to take off work early, drive back home for an hour, and then drive me out to the audition. Unfortunately, as an eleven year-old, these logistics didn’t really concern me. I was entirely oblivious to the sacrifices my dad was making for me. After a year or so, it became impossible to ignore the strain that acting had on my dad. One day, on one of our long two-hour drives back home, I mustered up the courage to finally ask him a simple question. “Why do you give up so much of your time and effort for my acting, Dad?” I’ll never forget the response that my dad gave. He said, “When you commit to something, you have to be willing to make sacrifices to see it through.” I thought about what he said and try as I might I could not get his words out of my mind.
After deep reflection for some time, I decided that I was willing to unconditionally commit to something and I would sacrifice to see it through. But the commitment I decided on wasn't about my acting; it was a commitment to my dad. I wanted to be a more considerate and understanding son. In one of the most difficult decisions of my life at the time, I called my agent and told her I was quitting.
Years later, as I took a bow during a production of the Wizard of Oz at my high school, I saw my dad sitting in the crowd. With his adoring eyes and simple smile, he had his usual look of warmth, gratitude and love on his face. I knew he was proud of me. At that moment, I realized that his love and sacrifice was far more real and important to me than any performance or audition. Through my misty eyes I knew right then that I was truly on top of the world.
2) What was the biggest challenge you overcame during your four years in High School?
My entire life I have been told that a sense of integrity and hard work can get you anywhere. That being a better person in the world meant far more than the amount of money I earned, the degree I received, and the amount of power I accumulated. To this day I still strongly believe in this notion.
For the past four years of my high school career, I have believed that service to others- friends, family, community, nation, and globe- was what defined who I was. My challenge cannot be defined as any singular event, rather it is the culmination of a lengthy struggle that led to my decision that service to others was more defining than any grade or achievement. My belief in this notion is the reason why I chose to help a suicidal friend in need when my sophomore year math grade was on the line, it is the reason why I chose to be there for my family when there was conflict in my household before my AP Calculus AB exam, it is the reason why I said no to cheating in many of my rigorous AP courses and instead took the lower grade, and it is the reason I founded a community service organization with friends who cared, rather than friends who wanted points and hours.
I was raised to believe that the difficult times I encountered in life is what made me who I was and not the easy ones. I am no privileged soul, and no unfortunate soul. I am a middle-class teenager who has had his share of victories and defeats, depression and happiness, and failure and persistence. But I learned in high school that you didn’t have to do unique things to shine, you just had to make an effort to make a difference. There were always the cynics in my life that believed in a pessimistic pragmatism, they believed that I was too naïve to understand the fruitlessness of trying to make a difference in the world, they believed that I was too young to say that I wanted to dedicate my life to the service of those less fortunate, and they believed that I was too immature to stay focused on this goal. My greatest challenge in these past four years was overcoming those thoughts.
