Spring Branch ISD Featured News

It may be too early to call Austin Armstrong a Renaissance Man, but then again, maybe not.

A short list of the Westchester Academy of International Studies (WAIS) senior’s activities includes:

•  Advanced Choir
• Theater
• Thespian Honor Society
• Wildcat Dance Team (he DJs, and has even danced with them)
• Interact
• National Honor Society
• National Technical Honor Society
• IB Career Program
• Eagle Scout (in progress)

 “I’m very invested in Westchester,” Austin said. “I don’t think I’ve fully processed (that I’m leaving) yet.”

Understandable. Austin has been at WAIS since sixth grade, after attending elementary school at Valley Oaks, with a brief period at Awty International School.

“Westchester has had a huge impact on my life,” he said. “I love Westchester. You can tell by all the things I’m involved in.

“(Westchester) is small so you get to know everybody so well. I know just about everybody, at least by face.”

You might even call him the mayor of Westchester, sort of. He did get to play Mr. Mayor in last year’s production of Seussical.

Austin’s also technically and digitally savvy, taking computer courses at the Guthrie Center and putting that knowledge to work in digital communications at WAIS, working on projects with teacher Shaun Wegscheid.

“I’m pretty well versed in technology,” he said.

So much so that he will major in computer engineering at Texas A&M in the fall. A good student, he was automatically admitted to both UT-Austin and Texas A&M, but scholarship offers tipped the scales in favor of the Aggies.

“It just worked out that way,” he said. He’s getting $15,000 in scholarship money to attend A&M. He’s also getting a $20,000 scholarship from the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, one that he’s particularly proud of.

“My dad is a big volunteer at the rodeo, a lifetime member,” said Austin. “I’ve been to the rodeo every year since I was born … it’s really, really exciting.”

He shows a reporter a photo of a smoker that he designed and built for his sophomore project, with the help of a friend who has a metalworking shop. He’s used the smoker to prepare meats for the WAIS senior auction and other events.

He cites his mother, Jo Anne Armstrong, as a “huge role model.” Now a real estate agent, Mrs. Armstrong has a degree in fashion design and Austin thinks that’s where he gets his artistic passion and talent.

His father, Daryl Armstrong, owns SSQQ Dance Studio near the Heights. The studio took on nearly seven feet of water during Harvey, but Austin said the family has found another location and is beginning build-out. The studio has special significance for the Armstrongs – Daryl and Jo Anne Armstrong met there before becoming owners.

Austin’s other family, though, is at Westchester, especially theater. He and his younger sister, Ali, a ninth-grader at WAIS, performed a duet of “Footprints” for the school recently that had everybody crying. “It’s like a good-bye from me to her,” he said.

He said that counselor Karren Sims, who’s known Austin since sixth grade, calls him her “favorite little project.”

Simms said that Austin is “an amazing young man (with) an incredible sense of honor.” She said met Austin that sixth-grade year when he accompanied her on a recruiting trip to an elementary school.

“I was so amazed at how poised he was,” she said. “Of course, now it makes perfect sense. He’s been so involved in our advanced choir and theater department. He is incredibly bright and has a great future ahead of him at Texas A&M in the engineering department.

For Austin, leaving Westchester is bittersweet.

“I spend more time here than at home,” he said. “I’m still processing the fact that I’m leaving.

“I’m excited but sad.”