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The Legacy of Maris Morgan

The Legacy of Maris Morgan
Maris Morgan magazine photo

A room filled with hundreds of people – some familiar, some not – goes dim, only lit by faint lights along the borders of the aisles. Eyes are cast upon a velvet curtain, ears ready to listen to the words and the songs about to be presented. With months of work echoed in every beat of her heart, Friendswood High School senior Maris Morgan breathes in, then out, then smiles. Though there is pressure on her performance, there is a calm in knowing this runs through her veins. The curtains open, the lights turn on…it’s showtime.

Maris Morgan is an incredibly creative and talented student. From the time she was a little girl, she had a love for the arts. This love first manifested in the form of dance and eventually evolved to include singing and acting.

“I have always loved music,” Morgan said. “Throughout my life, it has always been a big part of me because when I was dancing, there was music and then when I did more musical theater, it was still a big aspect.”

During her time at FHS, Morgan has been involved with theatre, choir, and the musical all four years. She said she particularly enjoys the musical because it brings together a variety of her passions.

“It's unlike anything else,” Morgan said. “It is you becoming someone else. You get to explore that person and you get to interact with other people, and you just get to forget about real life and play in a fantastical way. The adrenaline pumping and knowing that people are there is just really, really cool to feel.”

She continued.

“I have learned to work with other people that come from different backgrounds or have different beliefs,” she said. “There's value in working with people you have not worked with before and having a team effort because I feel like that's a lifelong lesson to have.”
 

Another lesson Morgan has learned through the arts is how to transform into a character. Of all the roles she has played, Morgan said her favorite was Newsies’ Katherine Plumber, an ambitious young reporter who works hard to make a name for herself as a legitimate journalist in a time when women are not taken seriously.

“Katherine was a girl boss,” Morgan said. “She wrote the newspapers, and she gave the newsies hope.”

Hope is exactly what Morgan said she needed following the previous year’s closure of schools due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We had no idea what my junior year was going to look like, but then we were told that we were going to do Newsies like, no matter what,” Morgan said. “It was a super hopeful thing to look forward to and push through the long days with masks and stuff. In everything that was unsure, I knew I could go to rehearsal, and that felt normal to me.”

With so many changes and obstacles over the past four years, Morgan’s love for performing has remained unshaken. It is because of this love that Morgan was able to help drive change within FISD to help better support students in extracurricular activities.

She, along with other FISD students and staff, participated in a focus group for class rank. Together, the group was able to influence the FISD Board of Trustees to re-evaluate how students’ GPA and rank are calculated so that students who want to participate in theatre, choir, athletics, etc. are able to do so without their GPA being negatively affected.

“I got to fight for changes,” Morgan said. “It is cool that I got to be a part of helping kids in the future not face the challenges I had to face.”

Though theatre and choir have been a huge part of Morgan’s life thus far, she will take her final bow to pursue a different path. She plans to attend Baylor University to study Communication Disorders and Spanish to become a speech pathologist.

“I'm really excited,” Morgan said. “I've always loved Spanish, and I always knew that I wanted to be bilingual no matter what I did because I feel like that's a nice asset to have. I was just researching different majors and thought it was really cool how people can help others speak well and communicate well because I have grown up communicating, not only on stage but also in real life.

 She continued.

“By now, I feel confident in speaking to others, and I would love to help other people feel that way.”

Morgan said her passion to help others is motivated by her faith.

“Being a Christian is definitely what drives me,” she said. “No matter what I am doing, my family always says, ‘Honor God, be a leader and do your best.’ That is definitely my driving force for all of the things that I do just to meet new people and love on them and do everything for His glory. That is my biggest inspiration.”

As she completes her last few months of school in FISD, Morgan said she is taking that inspiration in order to leave behind a lasting legacy.

“I hope my legacy is that I am someone who has a positive outlook, no matter what challenge I was faced with,” she said. “There have been a lot of obstacles, just like with COVID and Snow-vid and all these like crazy things have happened the past four years. My life has kind of turned upside down from freshman to senior year, but I feel blessed to have been given the opportunities I have been given here.”

FISD is incredibly proud of you, Maris Morgan. Stay creative, stay resilient, stay inspired.