Paducah Bank - Teen of the Week Graves senior is very passionate about music, architecture BY GENEVIEVE POSTLETHWAIT gpostlethwait@paducahsun Gregory Willett has a lot going for him. The Graves County High School senior has brains, talent and ambition, but those things would mean little without his passion. “Passion is what drives me,” Willett said. “I enjoy the things I do, and I love music and making people happy. I love doing art and drawing, it’s so much fun! And with school, I just know that there are greater things out there and that I need to push myself. Take those harder classes, because if you don’t try to challenge yourself, what’s the point?” Nearly halfway through his senior year of high school, Willett has managed to maintain his better-than-perfect GPA despite having a full-to-the-brim schedule with advanced placement courses and an after-school life of musical performances and theater productions. He’s an accomplished piano player who enjoys using his musical talents to make people smile. He studied architecture at the Governor’s School for the Arts the summer before his junior year and at the Governor’s Scholar Program the summer before his senior year. He hopes to continue his architecture studies next fall at the University of Kentucky. A few trips to Chicago and New York City early in his high school years sparked his interest in architecture. Willett doesn’t want to become just any architect, he said. He wants to be an architect for the Disney Imagineering team, the design and development arm of The Walt Disney Company responsible for the creation of Disney theme parks worldwide. “Disney is my thing, I love it,” he said. “It’s something about Disney. I think it’d be fun to work for a company that creates good memories. So many people have been to Disney, and it’s something that they hold really close to their hearts. I think it’d be amazing to make those experiences for people.” Willett, son of Chad and Jayne Willett, of Fancy Farm, is the Paducah Bank Teen of the Week. Each Monday, The Sun features a different teen selected from nominees submitted by guidance counselors across western Kentucky and southern Illinois. Next spring, a Teen of the Year will be chosen from the weekly winners. The Teen of the Year will receive a $2,500 scholarship. Every once in a while someone will ask Willett why he’s taking the classes he’s taking. Other students ask why he’s taking AP physics, AP calculus and AP statistics all at the same time. Why would anyone do that to themselves? Sometimes Willett finds himself asking the same questions, but then he remembers the reasoning behind the madness. “I just work hard at it, I don’t think there’s any other way you can get by,” Willett said. “I’m busy all the time after school, but that’s OK. That just means going home and working late, because I know it’s going to pay off in the end.” Recently Willett served as accompanist for the production of “Secret Garden” at the Purchase Players Community Performing Arts Center. For weeks he wouldn’t get home from after-school rehearsals until 9 or 10 at night, and then he’d have to tackle homework from his AP classes. But it was something he was willing to do, he said, because he loved working on “Secret Garden” and making good grades was just as important to him. “Sometimes it’s a little overwhelming to be involved in so many things, but I think that’s what makes you a well-rounded person, and I think that’s a great thing to be,” Willett said. “When I do get overwhelmed, I just go play piano. That’s the good thing about the arts, they just help you out. Maybe that’s my secret! The arts.” Willett’s parents started sending him to piano lessons when he was 3, and he’s been taking lessons and performing ever since. His parents told him that when he was just a baby he’d crawl up to the piano and play. He wouldn’t bang on the keys like most children would, they told him, he’d just play different notes, really listening to the sounds they made. His parents noticed early on that he was different. “If there’s one thing I could thank them for it would be that, just putting me in music,” Willett said of his parents. “It’s opened so many opportunities. I’ve played in pit orchestras and everything offered here at school. I play piano for two different churches. I’ve made so many friends just through piano.” Willett’s taste in music is just as well-rounded as he is. He loves jazz and pop music from the 1970s and 1980s like Billy Joel and Fleetwood Mac. He listens to Broadway quite a bit and can’t get enough of musical theater. He’s been especially into ’70s folk music lately, but last Monday during an especially bad spell of weather he woke up and thought to himself “This is a Sinatra day” and listened to Ol’ Blue Eyes to and from school. As far as what he likes to play, it’s whatever people want to hear. “I like music that people can relate to, that’s what it’s all about,” Willett said. “Not many people sit down and request, ‘Hey, play me some Beethoven, would you?’ They want songs they can sing to. That’s my favorite thing about music: It can help you relate to so many people.” Contact Genevieve Postlethwait, a Paducah Sun staff writer, at 270-575-8651.
Posted on: Mon, 20 Oct 2014 11:08:59 +0000
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