Olentangy Liberty’s DeLeon is today’s renaissance man

Sean DeLeon

Story and photo by

LIZ ROBERTSON

One might say that Olen­tangy Lib­erty High School senior Sean DeLeon has a thing about lan­guage. He even admits he is obsessed with culture.

With two vis­its under to Europe under his belt, the abil­ity to con­verse in Span­ish with native speak­ers, a fam­ily that chats in Ital­ian as they cook in the kitchen, an Aus­trian grand­mother and a father born in Salzburg with other fam­ily hail­ing from Mex­ico, it is no won­der that Sean hopes one day to work abroad.

His first trip to Europe was with the Blue Lakes Fine Arts Camp Inter­na­tional Youth Sym­phony Orches­tra. After his sopho­more year, he spent three and a half weeks vis­it­ing France and Ger­many, per­form­ing and stay­ing with host families.

It’s com­pletely dif­fer­ent, Sean said of Europe, con­trast­ing the Euro­pean lifestyle with Amer­i­can culture.

“It’s from every­thing as sim­ple as the clothes,” he said.

Jes­sica Walker is Sean’s Span­ish teacher.

“As a lan­guage stu­dent, Sean is always striv­ing to attain flu­ency by using Span­ish out­side of school as much as pos­si­ble. He is one of the few stu­dents that does not shy away from the chal­lenge of express­ing him­self in another lan­guage. This will serve him well in his future trav­els abroad as he is expand­ing his cul­tural hori­zons,” she said.

Sean would like to work in Europe even­tu­ally. He is still in con­tact with his host fam­i­lies and hopes to study abroad as well. Want­ing to expand his cul­tural expe­ri­ence even fur­ther, he talks of not only learn­ing Ger­man, but Chi­nese as well.

“I’m con­stantly think­ing of oppor­tu­ni­ties,” he said, not­ing he does not think it will be too dif­fi­cult to leave the United States. “I view life as like you only have one life so I’m com­pletely open to mul­ti­ple opportunities.”

Real­iz­ing he has to respect opin­ions of fam­ily mem­bers, he said when he was in Europe, he found he was very independent.

This inde­pen­dence rose from a child­hood atyp­i­cal from his peers; his father died when he was five. So there were ear­lier respon­si­bil­i­ties toward a younger brother, and the abil­ity to deal with life with­out being sur­rounded by adults.

Sean is apply­ing to the Big 10 col­leges, and is torn, iron­i­cally, between Ohio State Uni­ver­sity and Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan. He plans on major­ing in mechan­i­cal engi­neer­ing and to study abroad.

With both par­ents in the engi­neer­ing field, Sean said his mother influ­enced his deci­sion as she pre­sented the pros and cons. But this will not be the end of his par­tic­i­pa­tion with music as he expects to still be involved in com­mu­nity orchestras.

Prior to decid­ing on an engi­neer­ing field, Sean con­sid­ered a career in music.

“Music is a sep­a­rate pas­sion for me. It’s always been a pas­sion for me,” adding that in fourth grade he had the option to take either gen­eral music or strings. “I was intrigued with strings — and the ren­di­tion of “Twin­kle Twin­kle Lit­tle Star.”

Sean’s pas­sion for strings has taken him to a vari­ety of lev­els — from per­form­ing with the Blue Lakes Fine Arts Camp Inter­na­tional Youth Sym­phony Orches­tra to local per­for­mances with the Pro­Mu­sica Side by Side hol­i­day con­cert and the Cen­tral Ohio Sym­phony Orches­tra among other experiences.

Jill Bixler is orches­tra direc­tor at the school. She has had Sean as a stu­dent for the past four years.

“He is an amaz­ing vio­lin­ist that shows an advanced level of musi­cal sen­si­tiv­ity and finesse that is not often found in some­one so young,” she said, adding, “He has been a joy to have in class, although I must say that he has kept me on my toes.

“I imag­ine that Sean will be able to accom­plish any­thing that he sets his mind towards doing. He is dri­ven and pas­sion­ate, and will leave a big space when he leaves us this spring. I am so proud of his accom­plish­ments, espe­cially mak­ing the National Honor’s Orches­tra, and wish him noth­ing but the best for the future.”

Sean said his biggest accom­plish­ment thus far was apply­ing to the National High School Hon­ors Orches­tra — and mak­ing it in. He is in the unique class of only 90 musi­cians from around the United States that will per­form together next spring in Atlanta.

He first applied last June. The entry included two taped pieces, one required and one of his choosing.

One month later he learned he was in the top 30 in Ohio, so after another round and an ago­niz­ing two month wait — “so nerve wrack­ing” — he learned on Sept. 3 that he was admitted.

Senior year has been busy so far. Tak­ing five advanced place­ment courses in the core sub­ject areas this year, it is hard to see where Sean has any time to enjoy his final year in the Olen­tangy district.

“I’m relieved I’m a senior. It’s bit­ter­sweet, but I’m happy to be leav­ing,” he said. Hav­ing attended Olen­tangy schools since first grade, Sean will be leav­ing friend­ships he has had for the past 12 years. “Peo­ple always say senior year is best; they are so right.”

Most of Sean’s vol­un­teer activ­i­ties involve shar­ing his music in venues from church ser­vices to nurs­ing homes

“I love to spread music through vol­un­teer work. Music is a uni­ver­sal lan­guage,” he said.

Sean was also the senior leader of stu­dent men­tors for incom­ing fresh­men, vol­un­teers with Olen­tangy Reads and is sec­re­tary of National Honor Society.

“Sean has always been one of the most out­go­ing stu­dents that I have had in class. He never shies away from shar­ing his opin­ion and this is why he is a nat­ural leader. He has been a key fig­ure as a senior leader in the Lib­erty Stu­dent Men­tors group by con­sis­tently show­ing up after school and dur­ing the sum­mer to help orga­nize events,” Walker said. “Sean has a great sense of humor and never lets any­thing stress him out. When­ever I see Sean in class or in the halls, he is always laugh­ing or mak­ing some­one else laugh. Some­times you can hear him laugh­ing all the way down the hall and by the time he enters the class­room, his humor­ous atti­tude is infectious.”

Robert Roth teaches Sean Advanced Place­ment Calculus.

“Sean has impressed me in sev­eral dif­fer­ent ways. He thinks crit­i­cally,” Roth said. “He is smart, but not pre­ten­tious. With that, he pro­motes crit­i­cal think­ing amongst his peers, while not offend­ing anyone.”

“Sean is a highly moti­vated stu­dent who per­forms well both aca­d­e­m­i­cally as well as musi­cally,” said physics teacher Minda Wes­ley. He absolutely loves physics and cal­cu­lus and always asks ques­tions to ensure he thor­oughly under­stands the mate­r­ial. His pos­i­tive atti­tude and gen­uine inter­est in the sub­ject makes him an ideal stu­dent to teach.”

She noted hav­ing heard him play in a quar­tet that it is “eas­ily appar­ent why he was selected to be a part of the 2012 National High School Orchestra.”

“Sean is a rar­ity in Olen­tangy Lib­erty High School; he is a thrown-back, a renais­sance man of sorts,” social stud­ies teacher Peter Kros­nosky said. “He can speak intel­li­gently about an array of top­ics and is not lim­ited to the con­straints of his age. I have never had a con­ver­sa­tion with Sean about a cell­phone, video games or i-anything. Sean stands in a group of few stu­dents that enjoys learn­ing for the power that they gain ver­sus the grade they earn. Sean under­stands the fact that knowl­edge is power, and enjoys learn­ing for that opportunity.”

If that were not enough, Sean is also very active in the Wilder­ness Pur­suits Club, a club he co-created with his best friend. Par­tic­i­pat­ing in a vari­ety of nature activ­i­ties, he said, “We, and the other mem­bers of the group, see the out­doors as a chance to get away from the hec­tic high school lifestyle. I have always been fas­ci­nated with nature and its offer­ings. I love the seren­ity, weather (both good and bad), the ani­mals, the feel of a good breeze, the dis­con­nec­tion from soci­ety and much more. The com­fort of nature is what intrigues me the most because it’s a place for relax­ation and it allows me to enjoy the sim­pler things in life.”

With hopes to return to Europe this sum­mer, Sean is still focused on school and college.

He advises oth­ers, “Don’t fall into seniori­tis, because col­leges will look at your dis­ci­pline and aca­d­e­mic records until the last day. Just keep push­ing … Senior year is a train­ing year for col­lege. lt’s all about college.”

Sean is the son of Lisa DeLeon of Pow­ell and the late Fred DeLeon.

Posted by Liz Robertson on Dec 2 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.