By Patrick Brady ’26
Román Manjarrez opened his Founders Day speech saying, ¨Growing up bilingual and multicultural forced me into a lot of worlds I was not aware of.¨ Román was chosen to be one of the three senior speakers at a day to celebrate Blessed Edmund Rice.
Román is a state champion football player, top-of-his-class student, and a leader in different clubs around Brother Rice. He focused his speech on how growing up Mexican-American placed him in a whole new world that he thought was normal.
Román said, “Brother Edmund Ignatius Rice did this for everyone who needed it. To him, the color of one’s skin did not matter.” He still feels this way about the current Edmund Rice mission here and across the world. During the school trip to Perú, he saw the poverty around the world.
He summarized the feeling around the school when he said, ¨We all have our own stories to tell. Yet, when all is said and done, we truly are brothers here and nobody can take that away from us.” Brother Rice is filled with students from different backgrounds who come together to do great things.
Román continues to embody what it means to be a Crusader through the way he carries himself and talks about his experiences in our school and our senior class through his ability to speak and present.
