Whether drumming in the bandroom, fiddling with his synthesizer or sporting a pair of Airpods between periods, Derick Doresca ’26 rarely goes a day without music.

After being introduced to the drums by his dad at age three, Doresca picked up piano in first grade. By fifth grade, he joined Weber Elementary School’s band alongside his peers. Towards the end of junior high, Doresca joined the Northwest Middle School jazz band and started taking drum lessons.

“That was the first time I ever played drum set with other people. And I was like, ‘This is so much fun. I love this,’” Doresca said.

In high school, Doresca widened his musical horizons. In his sophomore year, he was introduced to Dr. David Haas, one of West’s choir directors. He started taking Haas’s digital music production classes and experimenting with producing his own music.

“I just grabbed my computer one day and started making beats,” he said. “I would talk to Oliver (Miller ‘25) about it, and through him, I met Dr. Haas, and then I started working with Dr. Haas a lot, and I took all his classes.”

Haas also convinced Doresca to join West’s choir and show choirs. As a senior, Doresca was a part of Concert Choir and West’s varsity show choir, Good Time Company.

In his senior year, he also auditioned for Iowa’s All-State band. After months of preparation, he became one of eight percussionists to perform at the festival.

“All-State was a crazy, cool experience. The preparation itself is worth it because the process of auditioning and learning the material makes you a lot better as a musician,” Doresca said. “And auditioning is scary; that actually is probably one of the only times I’ve had genuine stage fright.”

Outside of school, Doresca is also a member of two bands. One with West seniors pianist Sean Kearney and bassist Solomon Shaffer, unofficially called “Trisha Paytas.” The trio has played a couple of gigs, including one in Cedar Rapids and closer to home at events hosted by West’s student-produced music club, Cadenza.

“It’s a different type of thing when you’re coming together with your peers to make something instead of having a director teach stuff to you. I think it’s really good to branch out and do smaller ensembles,” Doresca said. “It’s a lot more of a creative thing, because we choose what we want to play and we just learn it on our own. So it helps with independence and learning how to play with others”

His other band, called “Don’t Fret,” is more recently formed, and instead of playing the drum set, Doresca sings. He performs with juniors Jack Rippentrop, Lea Abou Alaiwa, Miles Richardson and Elsie Gross.

“I love performing. It’s like, one of my favorite things, no matter what type of performance, I just like being on stage has always been so much fun to me.”

Next year, Doresca will be a member of the University of Iowa’s jazz program as he studies music.

“I don’t know if I want to keep pursuing digital music, like producing and stuff like that,” he said. “I’m trying to keep my options open, because I really like jazz and I love playing drum set, but I also like singing and producing. So there’s a lot of different roads I could take,” Doresca said.

When Gabriel Conrad ’26 was a child, he wanted to be an astronaut. Years later, he’s not ruling it out as a possibility. He recalls sitting at his kitchen table and asking himself how, exactly, one goes about becoming one.

The answer came to him while listening to a speech by Arizona senator and former astronaut Mark Kelly: military aviation.

So last summer, Conrad found himself learning how to fly a plane at the Aim High Flight Academy, where he learned how to become an Air Force officer and gained 15 hours of flight experience.

“[The Academy] tossed me right into it. It was like being thrown into the deep end of a pool, because it is scary, but definitely rewarding,” Conrad said. “Especially after I practiced a bunch, the flight instructors learned to trust that I knew what I was doing; [I would] take off and land on my own with no input.”

The Air Force demands technical, physical and mental skills in order to be successful. When learning how to fly airplanes, Conrad recalls learning various technical skills as a part of his training.

“We did a lot of studying in classes, so I can learn how to fly on a given day with a bunch of different variables, like barometric pressure, humidity, elevation and pressure at a certain altitude. That way, we can calibrate our instruments, because they’re sensitive,” Conrad said.

Still, Conrad cites that soft skills are equally important to the technical skills. He looks forward to growing holistically in the Air Force.

“I’ll be able to grow as a person in the Air Force. A big reason why there’s a lot of people that were in the military that are in prominent positions in business and government is because they gain a lot of soft skills, like leadership and communication,” Conrad said. “A big part of what they look for when you’re applying to a service academy is a little ‘sprout’ of these soft skills. They want to ensure that you’re able to nurture these skills and grow to [your] full potential.”

Conrad is also an Eagle Scout — the highest rank that can be reached in the Boy Scouts of America program. Throughout the program, Conrad has logged hundreds of volunteer hours.

“Scouting is a big part of my outlook towards service, because in scouting, you serve people in your community and serve your fellow scouts,” Conrad said.

Although Conrad has only just made it to the Air Force, he has faced challenges to get to this point. Originally inspired by role models and many of his family members, Conrad has a strong support system that fuels him to keep pushing.

“My uncle was the pilot that inspired me, then Mark Kelly initially pushed me in that direction. Then, when I didn’t have the motivation to do something, my dad got me to do it. He [got] the ball rolling down the hill,” Conrad said.

Conrad said he doesn’t know where his future will take him. Whether it’s NASA or the private sector, he is open to many possibilities. His next step is the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado, which he will attend in the fall.

“[The Air Force] is one of the biggest challenges I could embark on,” Conrad said. “I looked for the biggest mountain [and said], ‘I’m gonna climb that.’”