Growing into leadership

As she prepares to graduate from Mercy High School, the Millbrae teen would be described differently. Suhr is school president, a far cry from the quiet girl who started at St. Dunstan Catholic School. Today, Suhr is preparing to leave the Bay Area to attend the University of California at Los Angeles to study history, a stepping stone to one day studying law.

Suhr was born in Portland, moved with her family to Nevada at a young age and settled in Millbrae in time to start elementary school at St. Dunstan’s.

Suhr was not an outgoing little one at first, but that changed as she grew more comfortable with her small class of 27 students. In sixth grade, Suhr ran for class office and lost. Despite this, Suhr found herself enjoying the process. She decided to give politics another run in eighth grade. This time, Suhr won the office of school president.

Eighth grade was a great year for Suhr and her classmates who realized it was the last at the little school they had all attended daily for many years. Mercy may not be a large school, but coming from a class of 27, Suhr needed to adjust.

Eight girls from her class chose to attend Mercy as well. Scheduling, however, kept Suhr from spending too much time with her friends from elementary school. She was forced to meet new people, a challenge she now considers to be a blessing.

In that process, Suhr decided to try new things.

She began playing volleyball, at which she admittedly was bad. Suhr also took on swimming, a sport which she described herself as being worse at than volleyball. Part of the fun was meeting new girls, but also trying something new. Volleyball only lasted freshman year, but Suhr stuck with swimming through her sophomore year.

During her junior year, Suhr decided to really focus on leadership. She held positions as class representative from her freshman through junior years. This year, Suhr served as school president.

"I really like being behind the scenes,” Suhr said of leadership. "I really like that feeling of meeting new people and seeing other people’s perspectives.”

Starting the position came with some worries for Suhr who was elected to work with a group of girls with whom she had not previously worked. She had concerns that the new working group would take time to starting clicking. Thankfully, Suhr realized that was not the case while the girls worked over the summer preparing a mural in their office. The mural, which encompasses an entire wall, plays off the year’s theme, "Road trip through the school year.”

Suhr has helped her school in other ways. She volunteered all four years for the Ambassador’s Club, which gives tours to prospective families. In addition, she began working in the school’s new writing center as a peer coach this year.

This fall, she’ll be taking on a new challenge in an even bigger school at UCLA where Suhr plans to study history with a minor in Spanish. Suhr smiled while admitting history doesn’t seem like the most useful major, but it is a first step toward law school. She previously planned to study criminal law in hopes of working for the state or one day holding a district attorney position. Suhr isn’t quite sure that’s the legal direction her academic career will take, but law is still on the horizon.

Great Grads is in its fifth year profiling one graduating senior from each of our local schools. Schools have the option to participate. Those that choose to participate are asked to nominate one student who deserves recognition.

Heather Murtagh can be reached by e-mail: heather@smdailyjournal.com or by phone: (650) 344-5200 ext. 105.