Carter Gonzales, 9, has three siblings, one biological sister, and two adopted siblings, a boy and a girl.

His entire family constantly strives to do good, as they foster children in need and his mother has done surrogacies before. He’s an athlete and a star student. Carter juggles many sports and extracurricular activities, including aquatics, wrestling, track, and cross country.

Carter is also in JROTC. For aquatics, he does both swimming and water polo.

“Both are pretty different,” he said. “Swim is fun in its own way, racing other people and trying to get faster times, to be better and better. Water polo is a team sport, geared towards getting goals and all sorts of stuff like that. Your motivation is the people you’re playing with,  They’re both really fun in their own unique ways. Our highest score in water polo was 26-5 against Johnson, which our team takes pride in.”

Although it’s only his first year in wrestling, he’s already made some notable achievements.

“I got put into varsity and I originally was wrestling the 150-weight class. My current record is 1-7. I won a match and you know, I’ve only been wrestling for five weeks out of my life, so I’d consider that pretty good.”

As one can imagine, his schedule is constantly packed.

“It’s a lot on me doing wrestling and swim and drill practice after school,” he said. “As far as I know, track and wrestling will overlap next semester, so that’ll be a handful. I enjoy being busy, you know I’ve never had much free time. I knew that going into this I wasn’t going to have time for extra stuff and it’s something I’m ok with. ”

Although Carter has a jam-packed schedule, over the years he’s found time to discover his musical talents. Carter plays many instruments, including trumpet, piano, violin, guitar, and ukulele.

Essentially, he can play anything he gets his hands on. He also finds the time to go hunting and fishing, two of his favorite hobbies. As a high schooler Carter has excelled in both academics and extracurriculars, he is a model student and citizen.