He leaves shyness behind to make new friends

Cyrus Acres, a sophomore at Ross S. Sterling High School, with his sister, Delilah, a fifth-grader at Bowie Elementary.

“I’m 6-3. With the hair, I guess I look a little taller. Our family is pretty tall. My dad is like 6-2. My granddad is about 6-3. My other granddad is pretty tall as well. So I knew I’d be tall, but I didn’t think I’d have already outgrown most of my family by age 15.”

What are some good things about being tall?
“I play basketball, so it really helps with that. I also play water polo and I’m in the orchestra, where I play the upright bass. It’s a pretty big instrument, so normally the taller and bigger people play it. It’s pretty cool.”

Standing out is something he has become used to, as family matters have taken him across the country and made him the new kid on the block several times.

“I was born in Las Vegas and then right after that we moved to Los Angeles, where my sister was born. Then we moved down to Alabama for a couple of years. After our parents got divorced, we went with my mom and moved to Texas where she remarried. We’ve been here now for about five years. It’s been neat, though, living in so many different places.

“I’d say the biggest challenge has been making new friends. A lot of the people I’ve met have known each other since kindergarten or first grade. You come into a new school and you meet people who have already been friends forever, so you experience being a new kid several times. I’ve been able to adjust, though.

“I used to be really shy and not super talkative, but I started opening up more. I learned that it’s easier to make more friends when you put forth the effort to talk to more people.”

— Cyrus Acres