GREEN: George Moresea decided as a high school freshman he wanted to become Green High’s valedictorian at graduation.
Four years later, he will graduate first in a class of 265 students in ceremonies June 4.
He exceeded his own expectations, taking as many Advanced Placement classes as the school offered and will enter the University of Dayton with college credit toward a degree in chemical engineering.
“I just asked myself, ‘Why can’t I be at the top of my class? I have the ability to do it,’ ” Moresea, an Akron Beacon Journal Top 25 Star Student, said in a recent interview.
He credits his parents with his success and said he is the first to admit he has been blessed.
“I am very privileged. My parents have a wonderful marriage, and I have always been provided for,” he said.
Moresea has known since he was a small child that his future lay in a field built on mathematics and science. When he leaves for Dayton in August, he will follow a family tradition established by his mother, Brigitta, a pediatrician with a private practice, and his father, George, an anesthesiologist at Mercy Medical Center of Canton. Both are alums of Dayton, a private, Roman Catholic university.
“I took AP calculus last year, and I loved it. This year, I took AP chemistry and I loved it even more. Everything in math and science has an answer, and it is concise,” he said.
Moresea readily admits that while he has done well in his literature classes and learned many of life’s lessons from books, they don’t excite him as much as the sciences. He also admits his AP literature class last year in which students were expected to complete extensive reading lists from Hamlet to Crime and Punishment was one of the most challenging and rewarding of his high school years.
He credits his Spanish instructor, Angela Garritano, as the teacher who made the biggest impact in his life.
“She’s our second mom at school. Not just toward me, but to everyone. She really enjoys her job, and that’s what makes her such a good teacher,” he said.
Moresea is looking forward to joining classmates on a school-sponsored trip to Spain and France with Garritano this summer. It will be his first trip overseas, he said.
Garritano admires Moresea as one of “the true scholars I have had the pleasure of teaching.”
“He appreciates the learning process, not only for its preparatory value, but also for the enrichment that he receives from it,” she said.
Moresea, a natural optimist, said his desire to experience a wide range of activities has led him down a path with lots of twists and turns. While spending 10 hours a week on the volleyball court, he has also played on his high school soccer team, competed in shot put and discus on the school’s track and field team, and works out every day at the YMCA.
Scholastic honors include the National Honor Society, AP Scholar with Honors, Student of the Month and Student of the Issue (school newspaper). He won the 2013 Parent Teachers Association Reflections Contest and the Child and Family Awareness Essay Contest.
As a member of Queen of Heaven Catholic Church in Green, he volunteers with the Le Labre Homeless Program, helping to feed and clothe Akron’s needy, and performs community service with the church’s youth group, doing landscaping, cleaning and helping with church fundraisers.
His hobbies include taking tae kwon do lessons and playing a number of instruments, including trumpet, piano, violin, guitar and harmonica. He’s an avid outdoorsman who enjoys archery, biking, ultimate Frisbee, weight training and paint ball.
In recommending his selection as a Star Student, Garritano said Moresea’s desire for new experiences has even led him to take a ballroom dancing class last year.
“He has never allowed others to define who he is, what he does or where he is going,” Garritano said.
Kathy Antoniotti can be reached at 330-996-3565 or kantoniotti@thebeaconjournal.com.