Wes Adams, Student School Board Member, Is Recognized for “Swiss Army Knife” Dexterity

Until the end of meetings, Wesley Adams doesn’t say much when he sits alongside the five members of the Flagler County School Board. The Flagler Palm Coast High School senior is the designated student school board member (a role he alternates with Matanzas High School’s Jasmine Perez), and as the elected members have it, they tend to limit their younger colleagues’ say to a designated point at the end of the meeting.

But when an issue grabs him, Adams isn’t shy. He had no problem forcefully and repeatedly contradicting board members in several meetings that dealt with school uniforms this year and last. He opposes uniforms. He finally lost the argument to a 3-2 majority, the student board member having no vote of his own, but never lost his cool.

“The character of this young man is exemplary,” Diane Tomko, one of his teachers, said of him. “His honors are many, recognized at the local, state and international levels for his excellence in academics, community service as well as athletics. Wes carries himself with humility and handles adversity in a caring and mature manner. He shows a personal integrity and ethic that is refreshing in today’s youth.”

On Tuesday evening, as Adams put in his very last school board meeting, he was recognized for a national honor: He was named All-American by U.S. Lacrosse, the national governing board of the sport, after becoming one of FPC’s leading scorer in the sport in his four years there (88 goals and 96 assists, including 39 and 50 this year alone), and taking his team to the district championship this year.

Speaking of the nomination to the school board Tuesday evening, Adams’s coach, Ryan Andrews, described him as “the Swiss Army knife of the team.”

“He kind of has the jack of all trades,” Andrews said. “If we need him on offense, he plays offense, if we need him on defense, he plays defense.” Adams played for Team Florida, representing the state in Delaware last summer. He was a two-time North Florida Player of the Week, last year and this year (in a region that includes 72 teams).

Adams’s award is of particular importance to the lacrosse program for a couple of reasons: lacrosse isn’t exactly a marquee sport in American high schools, playing second or third fiddle to more brawnish programs. Lacrosse was recognized as a sport under the Florida High School Athletic Association only in 2008. And last year, the association slapped FPC’s lacrosse program with a $2,500 fine over accounting issues. The Swiss Army knife of the team was also a good utility man for his program’s image.

Adams carried on his sport, his school board duties and his academic duties while maintaining a 3.5 unweighted GPA through honors and advanced placement classes, and performing in the team’s band, although, as Andrews put it, “he gets angry when we say band. He was on the drum line in high school.” He was also in Tomko’s Future Problem Solvers teams, is a community service entrepreneur, tutoring, coaching and getting involved with the Key Club in the county. “He coaches the Flagler Youth Lacrosse team, which is pretty honorable because I don’t have the patience to do that myself.”

Adams has been recruited by a variety of schools. He hasn’t decided where he’ll go.