EmailPoway High School senior Chad Etchison already has learned life lessons – and knows how he wants to live his life.
Etchison’s first love is baseball, which started when he was just five years old. He currently plays on Poway High School’s varsity baseball team as a pitcher and enjoys the pressure and intensity of the game. “I have learned to channel that pressure into adrenaline to increase my overall performance,” Etchison said.
Future goals for baseball include playing in college and, hopefully, being drafted by a Major League Baseball team someday.
In school, Etchison’s favorite subject is history, which he describes as “amazing.” He enjoys learning about “how everything started” and likes to study battles and wars, specifically learning about World War II. Last year, Etchison had the opportunity to travel to Europe and visit the beaches in Normandy where the Allies launched the assault on Nazi Germany.
“It was amazing actually going to these sites where men fought and died for their countries, all so we could live the way we do now,” said Etchison.
Receiving the Parent Teacher Student Award (PTSA) twice in high school was another highlight for this student. The awards are presented to students who go above and beyond in the classroom, and to students who reach out to others. Etchison received his first award his sophomore year in his math class (not his favorite subject) for hard work and improved grades and his second one this year in physics for showing compassion and friendship to a teacher when she was going through a difficult time.
For his senior project, Etchison chose to organize a baseball clinic and barbecue for more than 150 orphans and underprivileged children in Tijuana. He handled all the details and plans locally, while working with a contact in Tijuana. Donations were collected from a fundraiser Etchison organized at Poway High School, and he recruited 20 volunteers to help with the event. “It was organized chaos and I loved every minute of it,” he said. “(After) all the hard work and stress I put into the project, I was rewarded with hundreds of smiles.”
For Etchison, memories of being at Poway High are bittersweet. As a close friend of Chelsea King, he experienced first-hand the sorrow and disbelief over the events that transpired just over a year ago (she was killed while running at a Rancho Bernardo park). But he also saw the community at Poway High come together and form inseparable bonds with each other that will last a lifetime. “I learned not to take my life for granted because I never know when my day will come. There is not a day that goes by when I do not think of my dear friend Chelsea,” said Etchison. “I think about the strength that I was able to have during those times and apply it to my everyday life…I know I will never forget the lessons I have learned from Chelsea King and Poway High.”
Etchison lives with his parents Mike and Dawn Etchison, and brother Andrew in Green Valley Estates in Poway.
