To say Hood River Valley High School junior Sebastian Barajas, 17, is busy would be an understatement. He just finished his Extended Application — or EA — project, has started volunteering with Special Olympics, works Saturdays at Wy’east Orchards and is gearing up for the start of track season with daily workouts.
And then there’s school.
Barajas is taking many higher level classes this year, but that wasn’t always the case. He describes himself as “an average guy” when it came to schoolwork as a freshman. By his sophomore year, his guidance counselor had helped him get into higher classes, which he finds challenging, but not hard.
“In honors and AP, everything is quick,” he said. “You learn so much; the teacher is constantly talking and you’re constantly learning new material.”
He’s taking zero period athletic development — weight training — and AP U.S. History, Honors Junior English, health, chemistry, yearbook and geometry. A teacher’s aide positon gives him time to practice discus with teammate Sam Fults; he’s also a peer tutor for the school’s new AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination) program, designed to help students get into college.
It’s his favorite class. To be an AVID tutor, students must first be nominated by counselors and go through training.
“I interact with kids a year younger than me and they seem to have fun with me when I tutor them,” Barajas said. “I feel good helping them, see them improve.”
AVID teacher Haley Harkema said Barajas is “super dedicated. It’s fun to watch him in tutorials. He takes it very seriously. The students love him.”
A student athlete, Barajas plans to major in nutritional sciences in college.
It’s what inspired his EA project, where he looked at athletic training as a career. He shadowed HRVHS trainer Chris Rogers and worked a hypothetical case study on an “unhappy triad” injury — or, in laymen’s terms, a tear to the meniscus, MCL and ACL ligaments.
“I enjoyed going in there and learning something new every day,” he said. “Chris made it fun for me.”
He also spent an afternoon at Gorge Spine, learning how physical therapists treat knee injuries.
Now that his project is complete (although he would love to job shadow a dietician at Providence), he’s on to another — that of assistant coach of the school’s Special Olympics team.
“I’m the strongest guy in school, and Mr. (Hector) Ortiz, the ELD teacher, talked to me, would I like to come down and help him be assistant coach,” he said. “It was a for sure yes.
“I’ve learned how to interact with kids who are special, to be around people I haven’t talked to in my high school career … It’s kind of cool being assistant coach and saying, ‘they’re my athletes.’”
Though Barajas is a three sport athlete, track and field is his favorite. “I love track and field. Sometimes people say I’m cocky when I say this, but I always say, ‘I didn’t seek it; it found me,’” he said.
In the seventh grade, Wy’east track coach Steve Wrye came to his house one afternoon “and told me to sign these papers,” he said. “The next thing I knew, I was on the track team.”
Wrye had seen his talent in cross country and thought he would make a good shot putter. But the first thing Barajas grabbed was the discus.
“I fell in love with it the first time I touched it,” he said. “It feels good, it feels natural each time I step into the throwing pit and let it go. I’m confident in what I’m doing — I’ve trained my body so long, it just knows what to do.”
He used to practice by throwing the large rocks around his house. “I’d grab them and throw them for fun. When it got too light, I’d move onto a heavier rock,” he said.
In the offseason, that involved throwing by the light of a car or just working on technique. His persistence paid off when he took first place in discus at the state tournament.
“I honestly didn’t know what to do,” he said. “All I knew was I was there to do what I loved to do, which is throw discuss.”
His competition was taller, stronger seniors. And he won. On his first throw, with a score of 156.9 feet.
His sophomore year was a rocky one. He wanted to go undefeated, but lost in two of his first meets. “I guess you have to learn to lose sometimes,” he said. “When you lose sometimes, you come back stronger — and that’s exactly what happened.”
Rocky start or not, he won state with a throw of 155 feet. With an injured elbow.
“When I was competing, all that went through my mind is, ‘here I am again doing what I love to do — just throw and don’t think about it.’ The next thing I knew, I was standing on the podium in first place,” he said.
It’s his work ethic that sets him apart from his peers, whether that’s on the field or in the classroom.
“Sebastian is one of those kids that come along once in a coaching career,” said Donnie Herneisen, track and field head coach. “He has a fair amount of physical talent, but where his work ethic is what really makes him standout. I’ve never met a kid as disciplined, motivated, and respectful as Sebastian. He’s the kind of kid who shakes his coach’s hand every day after practice and thanks the coach for working with him. Well, he’s not just that ‘kind of kid’ — he actually does that.”
AP U.S. History teacher Dave Case describes Barajas as “a grinder. He comes in for extra help and he’s shown exceptional academic progress this year. I think that’s how Sebastian approaches life — he understands delayed gratification, and he’s willing to work to get results.
“One image that comes to mind when I think about Sebastian comes from this summer,” added Case. “I came in to the school for a few hours in early August … It was hot, over 100 degrees. The only car in the lot other than mine was Sebastian’s dad’s truck. I looked out on the field and there was Sebastian, throwing the discus, and his dad, helping him gather them up so he could throw some more … That’s what makes Sebastian better than the other throwers in the state — he’s out there working when no one else is.”
Barajas is the son of Santiago Barajas and Carolina Flores, of Dee; he has two younger siblings, brother Omar, 14, a freshman at HRVHS, and sister Jacqueline, 9, a third grader at Parkdale Elementary.
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