Few labels evoke as many vivid images as the word “teenager.” From prom queens and football stars to fast food jobs and first cars, the short time period is forever embedded in the American psyche as one rich in excitement and discovery. In the following pages, meet six Bellevue Club teenagers who are climbing mountains, overcoming hurdles and pursuing their dreams—all while trying to have a bit of fun in the process.
Walk Softly: Chase Dekker Chase Dekker doesn’t really care about accolades. The soft-spoken teen does things just because he wants to. While many of his accomplishments and adventures would top anyone’s lifetime to-do list, this 16-year-old Bellevue High School student doesn’t dwell on them. For example, Chase earned his Black Belt in Jujutsu at the age of 12, and he was the youngest student ever to receive the honor in Seibukan, which is a
modern form of the ancient martial art based on Samurai fighting techniques. Besides martial arts, Chase began studying piano at his request when he was 5 years old and, unlike many musical pupils, he’s never quit. “I’ve played piano for 11 years, so it’s not something I want to stop,” he says. When he was 13, Chase auditioned and was accepted to study with the backup pianist for the Beach Boys. When asked about any musical aspirations, he is ambivalent. “I never looked at it as a career, just a hobby,” he says. Despite his martial arts and musical studies, Dekker has still found time to develop a passion for the outdoors and traveling. When he was 13—which is the youngest possible age—Chase obtained his scuba certification in order to explore his interest in marine biology. Growing up in Monterey, Calif., Chase and his mother, Pam Dekker, moved to Bellevue this past year. Chase has been quick to take advantage of the Northwest’s extensive outdoor opportunities. He recently spent a week camping in Idaho on a wolf trek with the Duval-based Wilderness Awareness School. “We just went out and walked around all day looking for tracks,” he says.
In addition, Chase has spent extensive time traveling with his mother, Pam Dekker. They recently returned from a several-week trip to Italy, and they’ve also been to Alaska several times, which Chase particularly enjoyed. While Switzerland and South America are also on his list of must-see destinations, Chase is really attracted to the wide-open spaces. “I’d really love to visit the Arctic,” he says. “I just like being out in the middle of nowhere.” And while Chase continues to achieve just about whatever goal he puts his mind to next, don’t expect
to hear about it from him.
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Favorite movie: “Borat”—I love the humor in it. I like really quirky movies like “Napoleon Dynamite.”
Favorite music: Whatever I can get my hands on.
Favorite food: The pizza in Italy was amazing, and I really like fondue.
Hero/Greatest influence: My grandpa because he always has a really good attitude.
Favorite activity at the Club: Tennis—I like the indoor courts.
Making a Splash: Hayley March Hayley can tread water about as well as she can walk. While the 16-year-old Bellevue Club member does take breaks for necessities like eating, school and, of course, a social life, Hayley spends the rest of her waking time soaking wet as a standout water polo player and an avid water skier. A key member of both the ultra-competitive Pacific Northwest United Water Polo Club and perennial state championship contenders Mercer Island High School, Hayley spent most of this past summer training for the USA Water Polo National Junior Olympics.
Hayley March
“We were practicing from 5:30 to 7 in the morning and then 7:30 to 10:30 at night every day,” Hayley says. However, she did take a break from her vigorous training schedule to take her first trip to Europe—only it was no sightseeing tour. Her club team spent two weeks practicing with top coaches in Hungary, the water polo capital of the world. While many teens’
first European trips include a backpack and guidebook, Hayley says they spent most of the time in the water. “We were in the pool at least two times per day, usually three,” she said. One of the highlights from her trip was playing in a hot spring-fed pool with stones along the bottom. Less than a week after returning from Hungary, her jet-lagged club team flew to Southern California to
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Favorite book: The “Twilight” series—they’re so good. Favorite movie: “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days” Favorite food: Sushi Hero/Greatest influence: My water polo coach, Tim Reed Favorite activity at the Club: The pool and the hot tub
compete in the Junior Olympics where they finished 18th out of 49 teams. When Hayley isn’t playing water polo, she likes to pursue her other water-related hobbies such as water skiing. Although she avoids competitions in favor of the more low-key atmosphere of family and friends, that doesn’t mean she takes it easy behind a ski boat. “When it comes to skiing there’s definitely an adrenaline rush,” she says. Hayley spent the previous three summers working at a water ski camp on Koppert Lake, a man-made lake in southern Washington, where she honed her considerable slalom skills. “I love being able to ski the course,” she says. As Hayley begins to looks forward to college, it’s safe to say she’ll make a splash wherever she goes.
Brett & Nick Alkan
Following in Dad's Footsteps: Nick Alkan It’s the middle of the night. Bellevue Club member Nick Alkan hasn’t been able to sleep for more than 30 minutes—regularly jolting awake to the machine-gun flapping of his tent that he shares with several other climbers. Upon waking, it takes a few sobering seconds to remember why he’s perched on the side of Mount Rainier at 10,000 feet in severe wind conditions. As one of the youngest members of a 15-person
expedition to climb Rainier this past August, the 14-year-old is trying to catch a few more minutes of sleep before getting up early for the final slog to the tallest point in Washington—only the tent won’t
cooperate. At last, not able to stand it any longer, he ventures out in the cold night in his bare feet and attempts to tie down the two loose ends. Fumbling with the ropes, it’s not until an adult member of the expedition stumbles out to help that they’re able to secure the offending noisemaker.
The next morning, the weary climbing party including Nick’s dad, Brett Alkan, made for the summit. After an additional leg-numbing 4,000 vertical feet, the entire group reached the top. Several weeks after the climb, the exhaustion is still fresh in Nick’s mind, and when asked about his favorite part of the trip, he mentions the summit but quickly changes his mind. “Wait, scratch that, I was too tired,” he says. A ninth-grader at Issaquah’s Pacific Cascades campus, Nick says he became interested in mountaineering after hearing his dad, an avid peak-bagger, tell stories about his ascents. “I really wanted to summit with my dad,” he says. His dad has climbed Rainier previously as well as Mount Adams and several other Cascades peaks. Nick went with Brett on a prior summit attempt on Mount Baker, but this was their first major summit together. The trip was spurred by his dad’s old high school friend from Ohio. He had climbed Rainier 149 times and
this was to be his 150th time on the top of the volcano. Besides Nick and his dad, there were three other father-and-son groups, as well as a father-and-daughter pairing. Before the climb, Nick spent weeks logging hours on the stair-stepping equipment at the Club and hiked a hill near his house, eventually adding weight to his pack. And his advice for would-be climbers? “Train really, really hard,” he says.
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Favorite music: I love Van Halen—they’re the best band ever. Favorite movie: “Blues Brothers” Favorite book: “Deception Point” and “Digital Fortress” by Dan Brown; “Hardy Boys” Hero/Greatest influence: My dad really influenced me toward mountains. Favorite activity at the Club: Swimming and working out with my friend
Maggie Dalzell. Photo courtesy K.C. Montgomery.
Taking the Reins: Maggie Dalzell When she was 8 years old, Maggie Dalzell found an ad in the newspaper for horse-riding lessons. Without waiting for her mother’s approval, she promptly called the phone number and scheduled her first lesson. “I told my husband I’d better take her,” says Maggie’s mother, Kathy Dalzell. “She kept telling me she wanted to ride, but she’s the youngest of four, so I kept saying we’ll try to get to it. She finally took it in her own hands.” Now, eight years and countless competitions later, Maggie, 16, is one of the world’s top riders in her division. At the past two World Championship Paint Horse Shows, she placed second in Hunt Seat Equitation, an event that judges a rider’s performance while executing a specific pattern with his or her horse. While last year’s result was expected, she faced a major setback just three weeks prior to this year’s event. She found out her horse had suffered a torn meniscus from a jump. So, rather than riding her usual horse, CCS Double Zip, she had to ride a backup horse, My Cowboy Cadillac, who had never done a pattern in a show before. “I wasn’t even expecting to do well,” she says. “I just tried to do everything as good as I could and it worked out pretty well.”
Besides her top showings in Hunt Seat Equitation, Maggie is also a contender in numerous other events including Western Riding, Horsemanship and Hunter Under Saddle. Competing at a national level, Maggie is on the road as much as an average rock band, which is just the way she likes it. “I always want to be on the go,” she says. “If I’m here for more than two weeks, I want to go somewhere else.”
“I love being home, but I love being home for a couple of days and then going somewhere else,” she says. Maggie has traveled everywhere from Jackson, Miss., to Wichita, Kan., but her favorite is Las Vegas. “It’s a really nice facility, and after you’re done with the show you can go on the strip and shop,” she says. In eight years of riding, Maggie has only fallen off a horse once, but it didn’t discourage her in the least. “I landed on my feet,” she says with a smile.
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Favorite book: “Flowers for Algernon” and “Harry Potter” Favorite movie: “The Devil Wears Prada” Favorite food: Raspberries or blackberries Hero/Greatest influence: My mom and my dad; also, Jeff Bezos, the creator of Amazon, because he created something he was passionate about and made a lot of money off of it. Favorite activity at the Club: Working out with my personal trainer, Amy (Clarke)
Will to Live: Will Guyman Two and a half years ago, Will Guyman was sitting in the front of a lightweight dinghy as it zipped through Desolation Sound on the British Columbia coast—and then all of a sudden he wasn’t. The craft hit a partially submerged log, instantly hurling Will off the bow and under the moving boat. The motor struck him and he was shoved deep into the water, but not before suffering severe injuries including the loss of his right arm above the elbow. He eventually surfaced due to his life jacket, and his dad, who was at the helm, pulled him in.
Will Guyman
Sustaining heavy blood losses, Will and his dad applied a tourniquet to the wound and returned to the remote harbor where the family’s sailboat was anchored. It took nearly four hours for the Canadian Coast Guard to airlift Will to the Campbell River Hospital on Vancouver Island. The rescuers later admitted that it was the most difficult operation they’d ever undertaken due to the high winds and darkness. Despite the trauma, Will never lost consciousness until he was in the helicopter. Three weeks later, Will started school as a sophomore at Lakeside School in Seattle without his dominant arm. Now, in his senior year of high school, Will talks about the challenges of adjusting to life as a lefty. “It’s all about your attitude,” he says. “For an amputee you always have to problem-solve and think of different ways to do things.” Since the accident, he has relearned most of his sports without his right arm, including squash, snow skiing and wakeboarding. When asked about some of the biggest adjustments, Will talks about the social implications of his injury. “The first week of school, everyone was really silent, and most people didn’t know how comfortable I felt about my arm, so they never talked about it,” he says. Will says his friends have been supportive, but that the loss of his arm gets in the way sometimes. “They don’t give me any slack, even on the basketball court,” he says. “Sometimes it’s really annoying.”
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Favorite movie: The “Bourne” series and “The Dark Knight”—Heath Ledger stole the show. Favorite food: Chocolate milkshakes—they’re so good. Favorite music: A mix of rock and hip-hop Hero/Greatest influence: Bill Gates and Dick Cooley Favorite activity at the Club: I like the tennis courts here.
Oftentimes, Will’s life resembles that of any typical teenager. He’s applying to colleges, he listens to loud music and he plays video games with his friends—albeit using a modified controller specifically designed for him by the Microsoft Games group. But, unlike many teenagers, Will is also busy running his own Web design business—WebWeaverWill.com—as well as helping to raise money and awareness about the plight of the thousands of amputee victims in war-torn Sierra Leone. Working with Greatest Goal Ministries (www.ggmusa.org), Will is passionate about starting a one-dollar-per-win fund-raising campaign with the middle-school soccer team he coaches, which he’s hoping to spread to other teams.
“I just can’t imagine how you could recover without the proper support,” he says. “So many of them died because they didn’t
have the right equipment to stop the bleeding. “For me, the accident was bad, but it was so lucky. I went over the boat and for some reason my head and my spine missed the propeller. I could have been paralyzed or dead easily,” he says. “It makes me think that maybe God kept me alive for some reason, and I feel like there’s something I have to do to give back.”
Sarah Espinoza
It Takes a Village: Sarah Espinoza Sarah Espinoza has stage fright. “I don’t like getting up in front of people,” she says. Despite her confident demeanor and studious devotion to acting and singing, Sarah gets a bad case of the butterflies before every performance. “It’s kind of ironic,” she says. Yet with the lead in this year’s Newport High School spring musical and a part in the competitive Village Theatre KIDSTAGE winter production, this 16-year-old is definitely not letting preshow jitters keep her away from any stage. Sarah’s love affair with theater started early. Her mom—Lynn Espinoza, former co-anchor at KOMO 4 TV and current executive public relations coach—recalls when she took Sarah to a production of “Phantom of the Opera.” “She didn’t talk about anything else for six months,” Lynn says. Soon after, Sarah participated in a variety of elementary school productions.
“We had like 50 kids in each show and three hours of rehearsal,” Sarah says. Moving on to middle school productions, she received the opportunity to start taking musical theater classes at Village Theatre. This past year, she auditioned for and was accepted into an advanced class with the nationally known production company. She also earned a featured ensemble part in Village Theatre’s production of “Once on This Island.” Aside from performing, Sarah also directs middle school productions in her spare time. “Directing is fun, especially with the younger kids because you can completely coach them,” she says. “I love helping them develop their own characters.”
Where does Sarah find the inspiration for her own characters? “I usually just lock myself in a room and think of every single question that you could ask about my character’s background such as where I was born and about my parents,” she says. “Directors tend to ask you things about why you’re doing what you’re doing, and it doesn’t matter if your answer is right or wrong because it’s how you see your character.”
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Favorite book: “Twilight” series Favorite musical: “Les Miserables” Favorite food: Japanese food—edamame and tofu Hero/Greatest influence: Natalie Backman, former coach at Village Theatre Favorite activity at the Club: Elliptical trainer
When asked about what character she would most like to play, Sarah doesn’t hesitate. “I’ve never played something evil before—I’m usually cast as the dumb blonde,” she says jokingly. She recently got her wish when she was cast as Florinda, the Evil Stepsister, in the upcoming Village Theatre KIDSTAGE production of Stephen Sondheim’s “Into the Woods” this January. Looking to the future, Sarah plans to keep acting through college and, hopefully, beyond. But how does she deal with her stage fright? “I don’t—right when I get on stage, it’s gone,” she says.
