JRA: Alumni: Tyson Nales

Growing up, Julie Rohr Academy had a major impact on my life. I began my time there as a timid 3 year old who hated performing and hated being onstage. After some coaxing and a lot of encouragement from those around me, I grew to love performing. The true family atmosphere at JRA gave us all a chance to excel, to build our confidence, and to enjoy some friendly competition among each other for solos and roles in each show. It really allowed for students to come out of their shells and to develop into a more mature and confident personality. Each grading period we got to get onstage and make every parent in the audience proud by showing off what we had worked long and hard for. It was a feeling of accomplishment that most kids in this age group probably would not get to experience at other schools. Continuing to work on my singing, dancing, and acting, I entered middle school and began to audition and play the parts of some of the leading characters in shows like Grease, The Music Man, and Li'l Abner. The feeling of being able to perform a leading role on a stage in front of the sold-out Sarasota Opera House is something that I have not yet been able to replicate. There is nothing greater than being encouraged and supported by every teacher, faculty member, parent, and student at JRA as you step onto a stage of that scale to perform with some of your best friends. To refer to this as a confidence booster does not even begin to describe what the experience can do for a middle school student.

As I moved out of my time at Julie Rohr and moved into the high school years I spent at Cardinal Mooney High School, I felt confident that I was well prepared academically, socially, and mentally for the challenges ahead. I went from knowing every single person that attended my school, to entering high school not knowing a soul. I began to grow in the small musical theatre program at Cardinal Mooney and continued to work on myself as a person and as a performer. I quickly made freinds of all different ages and by my senior year was involved in almost everything you can imagine on campus. I was an officer of the Student Government Association, President of the Drama Club, a Freshman Orientation Ambassador, was featured singer for almost every ceremony or sporting event held on campus, and was eventually voted Homecoming King for 2006. I was able to do all this while maintaining a strong grade point average, staying involved with my traveling chorus and my youth group, participating in numerous local talent competitions and holding a part time job.

I am now a student at the University of Central Florida in Orlando in my senior year studying Hospitality Management. Entering such a large university after being in such small schools my whole life was perhaps one of the biggest challenges I have ever faced. I was extremely nervous about it but I was more prepared than even I knew. I was quickly able to meet people by getting myself involved in numerous ways on campus, joining a fraternity and trying new things. In the fall of 2008, I was encouraged by friends and fraternity brothers to audition to be "Mr. University of Central Florida". I had never been in a "pageant" before and I was nervous to tryout, but I did and it turned out to be another one of the greatest decisions I have yet made. I learned that the pageant was a scholarship competition that would be centered around talent and an interview. These are the two areas I felt most confident about. I was able to excel in both; showing personatlity in the interview and proving to myself that I could still perform in front of a huge crowd after not performing for most of my college career.In November of 2008,  I was named "Mr. UCF 2009" and have not stopped since. From learning to sing at the drop of a hat again, to being in parades, from doing television interviews, to meeting with very influential university and community officials, in my time as Mr. UCF, I have really had to be prepared for anything and everything that is thrown my way. It has been quite an experience and I can confidently say that I am where I am today, representing and being the face of the 3rd largest university in the nation, with a student population of over 50,000 students, because of the confidence that I gained early on at JRA. The life lessons, self esteem building and the overwhelming amount of encouragement I received from everyone in the JRA family during my time there and still today, have been one of the biggest influences on my life thus far. Julie Rohr Academy is truly a place where every parent can grow closer to their children, the children can grow into themselves, and experience more in the first few years of life than ever thought possible.

Tyson Nales