EDGEWOOD, Ky. — Dixie Heights senior Seth Dossa can teach us all a valuable lesson. As he said, “never judge a book by its cover.”
“A lot of people see me and see a big football player or wrestler, but people don’t see the creative side of me and being in band,” Dossa said. “I enjoy writing; I do composition for academic team.”
“There is another side of me that people don’t get when they first see me. It kind of keeps me sane knowing that I can do athletics and sports but also have this kind of artsy and creative side of me as well.”
That creative side is embodied by his success in music. He qualified for the Governor’s School for the Arts and is the top-ranked tuba player in the state.
He plans on attending the University of Kentucky to study music performance.
“On Friday nights, he’s playing football,” said counselor Kaitlyn Miller. “Then halftime starts, and he’s taking his pads off and picking the tuba up and joins the marching band. Then he goes into wrestling in the winter, and he decided to try out for the musical this year. He really does do it all.”
Doing it all also includes academics, where he has a 3.8 GPA. He’s also nationally ranked in speech and debate, was on student council, is in the Diversity Club, counsels fellow students through “The Hope Squad” suicide prevention program and was Homecoming King.
“I truly think Seth is one of the best students we have at this school,” Miller said. “Seth is good at everything he does, but it’s not like it has always come naturally to him. Seth is a hard-working, wonderful student, but he also is so humble that he’ll never brag about all of the things that he does and how great he is at them.”
There’s also his commitment to community. He’s a member of Hanner’s Heroes, an organization where students visit their old elementary school and mentor at-risk students.
“I was once a student that had a Hanner’s Hero, and I think it’s really cool knowing that in the same way that I got assistance, I’m doing that for another kid who’s growing up in the same elementary school as me,” he said. “I think that it’s a full-circle kind of thing.”
“I feel like a lot of kids just don’t have somebody they can talk to besides your parents or your friends, just somebody you can look up to and talk to and have a good time with them.”
During the COVID-19 pandemic, he knocked on random doors in his neighborhood and offered to help elderly people with whatever they needed.
“That sense of wanting to go out and do something and help others is really important to me,” he said. “I remember it was over the summer, I would go around and knock on doors (in) a neighborhood next to mine with a lot of elderly people. I would knock on their doors and ask them if they needed help.”
“I cleaned out garages, I washed cars, I did gardening for a little bit. It just felt nice to know that I was helping people in some sort of way if they couldn’t do it themselves. It gave me a positive outlook on life.”
His parents, who immigrated to the U.S. from Togo in West Africa before he was born, shaped Dossa’s mature perspective on life. His father died when he was just a sophomore.
“I was really heartbroken for a long time, but I learned a lot about myself from that situation,” Dossa said. “I grew up from that situation, and I feel like I’ve become a stronger person.”
“In the same way that my father was a hard-working person, I felt like I needed to emulate that in some sort of way. So I feel like me doing all these activities and all this volunteer work and service for the community comes from my father.”
His father also taught him the importance of kindness.
“My dad was kind to everybody that he saw,” Dossa said. “I remember moments where we’d be shopping, and he would recognize a worker or somebody. He’d give him a big smile, call him his ‘brother.’”
“I feel like I try to emulate that and try to be kind to everybody and try to make everybody smile in some sort of way. You never know what somebody’s going through in life. I feel like when you’re kind to everybody, there’s at least one person a day that you make their day a little better, even if they’re going through a difficult time. Just being kind to everybody and making them smile will go a long way.”
“Seth lost his dad in such a crucial time of his life,” Miller said. “He decided to turn that around and say, ‘This is important to me to be successful, and I’m going to try hard because of that.’ What more could we want in a world full of future adults than people that are going to be great to be around?”
“You don’t ever want to see anyone struggle, but when someone can go through something and get to the other side, that’s even more encouraging. Someone like Seth who’s taking that struggle and the resilience that he’s found from that and then translating that back into working with students and Hanner’s Heroes and working with his peers through the Hope Squad and everything. He’s taking everything that he has learned and gone through and helping other people because of that. And that makes the world a better place.”