Manuel David Ureña Gonzales is currently a 17 year old senior attending Hoover High School and joined the VAPA academy to follow his passion in music. He is smart, silly, creative, expressive, open minded, self-aware and persistent.
Manuel loves music so much that after being switched academies and started doing more things that involved music. For instance, he joined pep band, played in Hoover’s rendition of Mean Girls the musical, and to him that was an awesome experience, and he had tons of fun. For his junior year, he signed up for the marching band not knowing what he was in for, but he thought it’d be cool and played the keyboard in front ensemble. Manuel has played in many concerts at Hoover for many different performances like rock band and jazz. He recieved the position of Drum Major for Hoover’s marching Cardinals in the 2025 fall season, after nervously applying. To him this was one of the most rewarding experiences in his life.
Besides band, Manuel has done a lot more things at Hoover. In freshman year, he was in Velo Youth which is a biking and leadership program. He’s in Cardinals Interact and through them he’s been given rotary opportunities. Rotary is a world wide organization with many clubs where people get together to solve different issues. Camp Enterprise, Camp RYLA, and Rotary Youth Exchange were among these opportunities. Along with others who passed the interview process, he traveled to Europe for 10 days. He went to Belgium and had a blast but he said his favorite part of the trip was traveling through the airports.
Manuel is a good student with a 3.8 GPA and is loved by many people in his life and they can never be more proud. Manuel is a caring person with a good heart, he’s always there for his friends when they feel down and is always giving out great advice.
After high school, Manuel plans to go to a four year university and get a career in music production and audio engineering. He hopes to live happily, grow old, and eventually start his own business where he can help less fortunate young musicians like himself find a place to create their art and let it be heard.
