With a passion for animals, singing, acting, volleyball and her studies at The Peak School, Winter Michelle Eby’s plate is full; yet she makes it look so easy! Winter Michelle is a Division 2 student at Peak who joined the Peak community after successfully beginning her education at Frisco Elementary. This year, Winter Michelle’s volleyball season has just concluded with successful participation in a competitive tournament in Atlanta. She was a setter on both the Summit Middle School’s team and on Vail Volleyball Club’s #1 14 year-old team. She’ll continue with volleyball camps this summer where she hopes to continue to improve as a setter and possibly to learn a new position, either as a hitter or a libero. Also this summer, you may want to head down to the Boulder Actor’s Academy to see Winter Michelle in a performance of Mary Poppins. She began performing with the organization 3 years ago when she appeared in the lead of the musical Gleeful, and followed that performing in last summer’s Footloose. Winter Michelle said, “I really enjoy acting and singing because you can really let loose and express yourself.”

She also stays busy doing volunteer work with the Summit Animal Shelter. Winter Michelle began volunteering at the shelter a few years ago playing with and giving attention to the cats and dogs. After spending time there and learning about the importance of the Shelter, she wanted to take that work to another level. Now, Winter Michelle and a couple other students teach a class, Humane Ed, once and week to second graders at the SC Elementary Schools. Her class covers the benefits of the Shelter to Summit County, the importance of spaying and neutering pets, how to approach a dog or cat safely and other topics.

Two other experiences really stood out for Winter Michelle this past year. Last summer, she attended the Rotary-sponsored Young RYLA (Rotary Youth Leadership Awards) camp. While it’s billed as a Leadership experience, she said it covered so many valuable areas that it’s really a “Life” camp. “It was really amazing,” noted Winter Michelle, “I learned so many life lessons that I apply day-to-day and in supporting my volleyball team.” She highly recommends all Peak 7^th graders apply. During the Winter Break, she was the youngest person to attend Dr. Deepak Chopra and Dr. Andrew Weil’s alternative healing and body/mind connection seminar, Journey Into Healing, at the Chopra Center for Wellbeing in Carlsbad, CA. Besides getting to meet and learn from the author, speaker and alternative healing guru, she really enjoyed learning mindful meditation and loves to share her experience and all she learned with her peers.

With such a strong and diverse background, Winter Michelle is an asset to our Peak community. We can’t wait to see what she’s up to next!