SENIOR GETS OFFERS FROM THREE MILITARY ACADEMIES
Ramona High’s Faith Wiggins wants to be Marine Corps officer
Ramona High senior Faith Wiggins is among the top scholars at Ramona High with a 4.38 GPA. She also serves as the school’s Navy Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps’ (NJROTC) commanding officer.
The 18-year-old’s greatest success, though, is receiving early appointment offers to three military service academies — the U.S. Naval Academy, U.S. Air Force Academy and U.S. Military Academy West Point.
Wiggins, whose goal is to become an officer in the U.S. Marine Corps, learned in October that she had been accepted to the Naval Academy and the Military Academy at West Point and then in early December that she was accepted to the Air Force Academy.
“I was through the roof,” said Wiggins, a lifelong Ramona resident. “I was really proud of myself, but I also couldn’t believe that it actually happened. Most people don’t apply to all three academies, and even if they do apply to all three, one will accept you but the other two won’t, or two will accept you and the other one doesn’t.”
Wiggins’ NJROTC instructor, Rick Jordan, said he’s never seen any other student accomplish that feat.
“I’ve been doing this 16 years and I’ve never had a student get accepted to more than one academy,” said Jordan, a retired naval officer who served in the Navy for 24 years. “I’m sure there have been others, but I just don’t know about it.
“I’ve had 35 cadets get either ROTC scholarships or service academy appointments and she’s the first one who has ever received three,” he said. “I’ve had some pretty high-flying students over the years and none have done that well.”
Jordan said he could tell Wiggins was “driven to success” from the time she entered the high school’s NJROTC unit as a fresh
man.
“She’s a fabulous commanding officer,” he said. “She knows how to plan and organize events.
“She’s very determined,” he added. “She’s very patient and she exhibits kindness to people. I think that helps her. She treats people as equals. She’s not demeaning and she doesn’t use her position or title to benefit herself. She’s what we call a total servant leader.”
Wiggins was installed as a unit commanding officer in December. She was promoted from executive officer, which is second in command, for her superior performance over three years in the program and involvement and commitment to NJROTC, Jordan said.
One of the key reasons she joined NJROTC was to train for a military career. She plans to eventually become a Marine Corps officer, following in the footsteps of her dad, Jeff Wiggins, a Marine officer whose active duty and reserves career spanned 28 years.
His stories of serving in Afghanistan, Kuwait and Iraq piqued her interest.
“I want to travel because when my dad deployed he came back with cool stories about the places he went to and brought back souvenirs,” she said. “I want to go to the places Dad went to, to see what I think about them.”
Wiggins selected the Naval Academy as the best route to achieving her dream of becoming an officer in the Marines.
Induction day for the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., is June 29.
“I think I’ll like it there,” she said. “I’m looking forward to meeting other likeminded people. It will be nice to be in that environment with people who want to be officers and are outstanding people.”
Wiggins won’t need to declare her major until her second year of the four-year program, but she’s considering studying chemistry.
As the high school cadet commanding officer, Wiggins has been fine-tuning her leadership skills.
Her responsibilities include overseeing and planning all the unit events and ensuring that the unit of 110 NJROTC cadets runs smoothly.
She also makes sure the unit’s drill meet team of 40 cadets is ready for competition. At the state drill championship held in Santa Ana in February, the Ramona High team placed 10th in the state out of 17 schools that qualified, Jordan said. Three teams in the same competition that advanced to the national championship placed second, fourth and sixth, so Jordan said the competition was fierce.
Wiggins will also oversee Ramona High’s NJROTC end-of-year awards ceremony.
Along with her school responsibilities, she has participated in such activities as the American Legion Auxiliary’s annual Girls State held at Sacramento State University. More than 500 girls came together to learn how the state government operates. To Wiggins’ knowledge, she is the first girl to attend Girls State from Ramona High.
During her sophomore year, Wiggins also attended a Four Star Leadership event at Oklahoma Christian University. Only about 70 youths from around the nation were invited to hear speakers talk about character development and good leadership traits, she said.
To round out her experiences, she has competed in girls cross-country and lacrosse for four years, including three years on the varsity teams for both sports.
Her mom, Cheryl Wiggins, said the family is very proud of her, and they recognize she has worked hard to get to this level.
“She had early appointments to all three academies, which we were totally blown away by,” Cheryl Wiggins said. “We were hoping she would get into at least one, and to get early appointments to all three was hard to comprehend.
“She is just one very determined young lady,” she added. “She’s been like that since she was little. She’s always been the type to say, ‘I can do it myself.’ I’m going to prove you wrong and show you I can do it. She’s not the type to give up, she’ll just keep pushing.”