Nosferatu Espinoza

DUNBAR HIGH SCHOOL

By the time Nosferatu Espinoza graduates from Dunbar High School, the 16-year-old will likely already have an associate’s degree at no cost.

But he’ll have more than that: the experience of being team captain of the school’s wrestling team, serving on the student senate and as a member of the National Honors Society. He wants to be an aerospace engineer.

“I love to design stuff,” Espinoza said. “For my ninth-grade science project I worked on a pulse jet engine I made in my back yard with some galvanized

steel stove piping that was just in a u-bend.”

Espinoza is one of about 110 Dunbar students attending college either at the high school or at Sinclair.

Espinoza adapted to a pretty abrupt cultural change when his family moved here from Athens, Ohio, in 2016 to be closer to his grandparents. He went from a rural district where the bus driver played classic country cassette tapes on the way to school, to an urban one where rap music is much more common.

He enjoys his classes at Sinclair, where he starts his days in the winter so he can get back to Dunbar for wrestling practice in the afternoon. The rest of the year, he starts at Dunbar then gets free bus fare to Sinclair.

This summer he was accepted to take part in the competitive Hugh O’Brian Youth leadership training and community service program.

When asked what the community can do to help more kids like him succeed, he said “It all starts at home, in teaching good, strong moral foundations for your kids.”