{"id":3781,"date":"2026-03-31T14:51:37","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T14:51:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/education.delaware.gov\/award-programs\/secretary-of-education-scholars\/2026-delaware-secretary-of-education-scholars\/dereknick-garcia-morales\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T14:51:37","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T14:51:37","slug":"dereknick-garcia-morales","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/education.delaware.gov\/award-programs\/secretary-of-education-scholars\/2026-delaware-secretary-of-education-scholars\/dereknick-garcia-morales\/","title":{"rendered":"Dereknick Garcia-Morales"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"student_container\">\n<div role=\"region\" aria-label=\"Personal information about Dereknick Garcia-Morales\" class=\"grid\">\n\t<div class=\"grid-item grid-item-med grid-item-fixed picture\">\n\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/education.delaware.gov\/award-programs\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/03\/garcia_morales_dereknick_h.webp\" width=\"270\" alt=\"Headshot of Dereknick Garcia-Morales\">\n\t<\/div>\n\t<div class=\"grid-item grid-item-med grid-item-fixed nomination\">\n\t\t<h2 class=\"scholar_nomination_statement\">Nomination Statement<\/h2>\n\t\tSon of Nicasio Garcia Hernandez and Marisol Morales Pedraza, Dereknick Garcia-Morales is an exceptional and driven student who has earned an impressive 4.66 GPA. He is a national qualifier in BPA, serves as treasurer of Youth in Government, is captain of the Math League, and is an executive member of the Student Advocacy Leadership Team (SALT). An International Baccalaureate Certificate and Advanced Placement student, Dereknick also takes dual enrollment courses at the University of Delaware. After graduation, he plans to attend Duke University to major in mechanical and electrical engineering.\n\t<\/div>\t\t<div class=\"grid-item grid-item-med logo\">\n\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" width=\"280\" src=\"https:\/\/education.delaware.gov\/award-programs\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2023\/04\/sussex_central_high_school-1.jpg\" alt=\"Logo of Sussex Central High School\">\n\t\t<\/div>\t\t<div class=\"grid-item grid-item-med personal\">\n\t\t\t&ldquo;As a son of immigrants, I've always found inspiration in honoring their efforts to ensure a brighter future. &lsquo;Progress.&rsquo; But progress never meant aimlessly throwing myself at the future. Nor was it hopelessly clinging to the past. To me, it's consulting tradition and foresight to fulfill oneself presently. I've lived by finding value where I was told I was never meant to; I live by finding beauty. I will carry that mindset through engineering to build that better, brighter future.&rdquo;\n\t\t<\/div>\t\t<div class=\"grid-item grid-item-med picture\">\n\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" width=\"270\" src=\"https:\/\/education.delaware.gov\/award-programs\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/03\/garcia_morales_dereknick_3.jpg\" alt=\"\">\n\t\t<\/div>\t\t<div class=\"grid-item grid-item-med picture\">\n\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" width=\"270\" src=\"https:\/\/education.delaware.gov\/award-programs\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/03\/garcia_morales_dereknick_1.jpg\" alt=\"\">\n\t\t<\/div>\t\t<div class=\"grid-item grid-item-med picture\">\n\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" width=\"270\" src=\"https:\/\/education.delaware.gov\/award-programs\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/03\/garcia_morales_dereknick_4.jpg\" alt=\"\">\n\t\t<\/div>\t\t<div class=\"grid-item grid-item-med picture\">\n\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" width=\"270\" src=\"https:\/\/education.delaware.gov\/award-programs\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/03\/garcia_morales_dereknick_2.jpg\" alt=\"\">\n\t\t<\/div><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve lived by finding value where I was told I was never meant to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3597,"parent":3664,"menu_order":27,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"protect_children":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3781","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":{"school":"Sussex Central High School","school_logo":1762,"student_images":[3777,3778,3779,3780],"nomination_statement":"Son of Nicasio Garcia Hernandez and Marisol Morales Pedraza, Dereknick Garcia-Morales is an exceptional and driven student who has earned an impressive 4.66 GPA. He is a national qualifier in BPA, serves as treasurer of Youth in Government, is captain of the Math League, and is an executive member of the Student Advocacy Leadership Team (SALT). An International Baccalaureate Certificate and Advanced Placement student, Dereknick also takes dual enrollment courses at the University of Delaware. After graduation, he plans to attend Duke University to major in mechanical and electrical engineering.","personal_statement":"As a son of immigrants, I've always found inspiration in honoring their efforts to ensure a brighter future. &lsquo;Progress.&rsquo; But progress never meant aimlessly throwing myself at the future. Nor was it hopelessly clinging to the past. To me, it's consulting tradition and foresight to fulfill oneself presently. I've lived by finding value where I was told I was never meant to; I live by finding beauty. I will carry that mindset through engineering to build that better, brighter future.","add_quotes":true},"checksum":["207c5f4317acab49cf5e24db4cd5d5d0a6fa3770"],"sw_mod_date":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/education.delaware.gov\/award-programs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/education.delaware.gov\/award-programs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/education.delaware.gov\/award-programs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/education.delaware.gov\/award-programs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/education.delaware.gov\/award-programs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/education.delaware.gov\/award-programs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3781\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/education.delaware.gov\/award-programs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3664"}],"acf:attachment":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/education.delaware.gov\/award-programs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3780"},{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/education.delaware.gov\/award-programs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3779"},{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/education.delaware.gov\/award-programs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3778"},{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/education.delaware.gov\/award-programs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3777"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/education.delaware.gov\/award-programs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/education.delaware.gov\/award-programs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}