St. Paul VI Catholic High School has been a part of Travis Perry’s life for as long as he can remember. “My grandmother was the dance coach here when I was in diapers, (and) she would bring me to their practices,” said the senior. “I have two older brothers and two cousins who went here, so I’ve just been part of PVI for a very long time.”
During his four years at Paul VI, the last two at the Chantilly campus, Perry especially enjoyed history, math and science classes, including calculus, statistics and chemistry. In the fall, he’ll study engineering at New York University in New York City. Sports also played a big part in his high school experience. Perry, who graduated from his parish school, St. Leo the Great School in Fairfax, was on the swim, tennis, track and soccer teams. Making friends was the best part of his sports experience.
“The people I met freshman year playing soccer are still my closest friends, even ones that stopped playing soccer,” he said. “(With) tennis, I had never played tennis before my sophomore year, and my friend had convinced me and a few of my other friends to try it out and we all really enjoyed it.”
Attending the swim team year-end banquet is one of his favorite senior year memories. “One of the traditions is the juniors give a speech for the seniors and it was just a great way to look back on the four years that we had together, and some of the speeches were very funny,” he said.
Perry spent two years at the Fairfax campus before the community moved to Chantilly. While it’s farther from home, he’s loved using the new athletic fields and spending time in the beautiful school chapel. Perry and his brother often got to school early, and he began to attend the morning daily Masses. It’s one of the reasons he’s grateful he spent the last four years at Paul VI, becoming part of a community he describes as family.
“The opportunities that I’ve been given here — being able to go to Mass every morning if I want to, adoration on Thursdays, confession any day of the week that you want to go, and also all the different retreats that we have — they’ve all been great chances to grow in my faith.”
