When senior point guard Mirabelle Estrada steps onto the basketball court to play her final season, she will have more than her team’s offense on her mind. Mirabelle will be looking back at her last four years at El Dorado High School with every pass she makes and every point she scores.
From playing in the bi-district playoffs against Bowie High School her sophomore year to leading the yearbook staff as a head copyeditor and volunteering with the school’s National Honor Society (NHS), the opportunities Mirabelle has seized as a student in the Socorro Independent School District have helped to shape a bright future.
“It’s so mind-blowing to me that as only a high school student, I have so many opportunities ahead of me,” said Mirabelle, an aspiring firefighter and emergency medical technician. “For the yearbook, we are going to Boston. For NHS, I connected with the firefighting community at Fire Fest. I like how all these opportunities could connect me to stuff in my future that I want to pursue.”
In recognition of her outstanding accomplishments, Mirabelle was selected to recite the Pledge of Allegiance at the Socorro ISD’s Board of Trustees regular meeting in October.
On the court, Mirabelle has emerged as one of the top players on the Aztec girls basketball team. In the classroom, she has continued her winning streak. Mirabelle is on track to graduate in the top 10% of her class next year. She expects to earn an associate degree from El Paso Community College in December through El Dorado’s early college high school program.
For the past three years, Mirabelle has received All-District Academic honors for her outstanding athletic and academic skills, illustrating how she is as serious about her grades as she is about basketball. Her goal is to study fire science and become the first in her family to graduate from a university.
“I feel like both in academics and basketball, you face failure,” Mirabelle said. “But I think seeing a failure in basketball, I’ve always not looked at that as a setback, rather as a way to move forward, so I always take that to my academics. If I don’t do as well on a test as I think I would, I don’t see that as a setback; I see it as I need to study harder the next time.”
Off the court, she applies her leadership skills as the basketball team’s co-captain to her role as head copyeditor of the school’s award-winning yearbook. She helps yearbook staff improve their writing just as she would support the players on the team to improve their game.
Journalism teacher and yearbook advisor Vanessa Martinez said one of Mirabelle’s strongest attributes is her eagerness to serve others.
“She’s very good at helping people who make a mistake feel comfortable and help them correct the mistake,” Martinez said. “That’s something that is hard to find in adults, and if you can see that in a student who has that maturity level to help kids get better without judgment, that’s a really big deal and a really valuable characteristic. And she does that with a lot of grace and humility.”
For Mirabelle, the key to success is finding the right balance between her studies and athletics.
During timeouts at a game last year, she recalled editing stories on her laptop to meet the yearbook’s deadline.
“I always tell myself if I don’t have time, I have to make time no matter what,” Mirabelle said. “I always set my priorities straight depending on the importance of the task.”
Despite all her accolades, Mirabelle said what she will miss most about high school are the friends she’s made and the teachers and coaches, including coach Tyrone Burns who mentored her. Her advice to incoming high school students is to seize the school’s many opportunities just like she did.
“I know as a freshman it’s very scary transitioning to a new school,” Mirabelle said. “But try not to be so timid because there are so many people with open arms on this campus. So many people are nice here, and so many teachers and people are checking in on you, and you’ll find your spot.”