Dylan O’Shea of Melbourne Beach just experienced having a Congressional Medal of Merit placed around his neck and graduating Valedictorian of his class at Florida Preparatory Academy in Melbourne all in one week – but these accolades probably won’t go to his head.
The nationally recognized Eagle Scout already has a list of impressive honors a page long, single-spaced – and that’s just from high school.
Yet, several nights a week he’s still elbow-deep in dirty dishes as a busboy and dishwasher at Ocean 302 Bar and Grill – just a regular 18-year-old looking forward to one last summer at the beach, plus a few more months of home-cooked meals and clean laundry before heading to Gainesville to crack the books as a history major at the University of Florida.
O’Shea’s advice to his fellow graduates from the Class of 2017 was deceivingly simple: Be yourself.
“If you waste your time walking around in somebody else’s shoes, you’re wasting your life,” he said in his remarks to his class. “The greatest people you’ve ever met are great because they’re unique. The most unique thing about you is what makes you who you are.”
That goes against the conventional adolescent tendency to do whatever it takes to be popular, as O’Shea said, “Teenagers are wired, definitely designed to fit in, but what I learned in high school is that instead of self-censoring and trying to be like other people, I’m just me. I don’t try to be like anyone else.”
That’s O’Shea’s recipe both for staying out of trouble as a teenager in a world of temptations and peer pressure and for staying on track. His track. Not anyone else’s presumption of who he should be.
Does it bother him when people ask what he’s going to do with a history degree?
Nope. The young man loves history, so that’s what he’s going to study. There was no going back after a trip to Italy where he was awestruck by the ruins at Pompeii and the glory of Rome, Venice and Florence with their abundance of historical treasures.
He thinks analyzing the past might also give him a good core of knowledge to take with him to the future – which for O’Shea means law school.
Along with an education and a healthy dose of common sense, O’Shea said he’ll carry with him to the hallowed halls of the Gator Nation skills and wisdom gained via many years of working toward his Eagle Scout rank achievement.
“What I got out of my scouting experience was learning how to lead a group of people, either on your level or a bunch of small boys who need a leader. I learned to lead and to teach,” O’Shea said.
Leadership excellence was one of the criteria Congressman Bill Posey looked for in identifying students for this year’s Medal of Merit. Posey said young people – especially the promising youth of his district – are what keep him looking upward when he gets discouraged with the day-to-day grind of government and life in Washington, D.C.
Though he’s very low-key about all the honors he’s received, O’Shea said he was humbled to have the Congressional Medal of Merit placed around his neck on a red, white and blue ribbon before Brevard County School District’s principals and top school officials. “It’s definitely really special, to have received it from an actual politician. It’s definitely up there,” O’Shea said.
Robert and Annette O’Shea, who moved their family to Melbourne Beach 14 years ago from Long Island, New York and who both work for Harris Corporation, beamed with pride as they watched their eldest of two sons receive the Congressional Medal.
