By day Marin Deifel is an IB student here at Highland but by night she serves as a team mom of sorts. Working daily from 2:30 till as late as 11 during the football seaso, Diefel has become the go to girl for anything Highland Football related.

Since sophomore year, Deifel has been manager of the Highland football team doing everything on the sidelines from filling water bottles to picking up coach, Jon Jensen’s kids from school. She officiates behind the scenes making it possible for the coaches to focus on coaching.

As a football manager, basketball manager, IB student, art enthusiast, and former student body officer, there isn’t any area in which Deifel is lacking. Her hard work in all of these areas has helped her earn the Sterling Scholar award for World Languages.

With five years of Spanish classes under her belt, Deifel set off on a humanitarian trip to Nicaragua for six weeks last summer. She spent these weeks immersing herself deep into the Nicaraguan culture, and the Spanish language, building a lasting relationship with her host family in which she had 4 “siblings”. Deifel helped to build roofs over the wells of her town and get new jerseys for the local soccer team. She also taught lessons in public health while serving the people and getting to know them.

Deifel continually makes service a priority, volunteering at the Food Bank and regularly at the Humane Society. She also helps at school, helping take care of football coaches kids during the football season. Her caring nature has made Deifel a great candidate for babysitting.

In addition to managing football with her sister, Kiran, and basketball, Deifel loves to watch it and considers this one of her hobbies as well as playing with her dogs. You can tell that she has a real love for animals the way she cares for her Bull Terrier, Lisi, her Basset Hound named Mavis, and their family dog, Bogart. She also enjoys spending time in the mountains, specifically fishing and hiking. Although Deifel’s academic schedule is very demanding, she somehow manages to find the time to draw, which is one of her favorite things.

“She’s a really good artist,” Marin’s dad, Aaron Deifel, said. “She loves to sit around and draw, work in different mediums and stuff. When she gets stressed out she draws and does her artwork and she’s really good at it.”

Deifel’s dedication and love for art along with her perfectionistic commitment towards her education are profound but she credits her greatest accomplishment to always challenging herself.

“[Challenging myself] is not something that I like to do, it makes me wholly uncomfortable,” Deifel said. “But I do it anyway and it’s rewarding,”

Deifel has certainly proven the effectiveness of her key to success by becoming a Sterling Scholar and showing her strong will to grow and to help people.

After graduation Marin aspires to study at the University of Washington in its prosthetics and orthotics program hoping to work with wounded veterans and first responders.