“They knew me as a kid who dressed up every day, nobody really knew my name.”
Junior Max Munoz is known to the North Penn High population as the guy who wears a suit and tie to school on a day to day basis. But deep down underneath the shirts and ties, he’s just a guy with a uniquely deep appreciation for school.
The inspiration for the shirts and ties were all Munoz own doing In fact, dressing up to school every day was more of a motivation.
“No one really motivated me, I just started doing it and I really liked it. There was no influence and it was all my own doing. My parents like it and they have no problem with it. I personally like it because it makes the teachers respect me and I feel more distinguished,” explained Munoz.
Just like Stephen Colbert of The Colbert Report, Munoz has a particular favorite brand when it comes to splurging on his suit purchases. “My favorite store is definitely Brooks Brothers; the one up in Pottstown is the one I go to,” says Munoz.
His panache also includes a variety of clothing to fit his personality.
“Obviously, I have to reuse ties and suits; I mix and match. I’m mainly a tie guy over bow ties because ties are more abundant. Bow ties go with suspenders which I am wearing. And my casual outfits are usually made up of khakis with brown shoes, a dress shirt, my Harvard tie, and my Harvard sweater.”
Speaking of Harvard, the Ivy League is at the very top of Munoz’s college list. According to Munoz “Harvard is my main school, UPenn is good, and so are William and Mary, and Yale.”
While college is on the radar, it has been a long road getting to this point. Munoz has had a pretty unusual time growing up and p[regressing through school.
“I moved around a lot. I grew up here in Pennsylvania. I moved around in elementary for the most part, my longest stretch of time was second to fifth grade. And the elementary school was West Broad, which is in Souderton School District. Then I went to Indian Valley Middle School which is also Souderton for two months and then we moved to Indiana in the middle of the school year. I went to a middle school called Edgewood; I hated it so much that I decided to move to Mexico with my dad. My dad had already lived there for years and I missed him obviously, so I thought it would be a good experience. And I know my family down there and I visited them before and so I wanted to get to know them more. Indiana to Mexico, I spent the summer and school year, and went back to Indiana for a summer and then went back to Mexico. But then my dad moved to a different place in Mexico, kind of like a different state altogether. And I went with him also and actually transferred schools within the same area. And then that was the end of eighth grade. After that I went back to Indiana for ninth grade and then moved here to Pennsylvania. I’ve counted and I think it’s ten school districts total” revealed Munoz.
Last year, Munoz was a sophomore entering North Penn School District and as a new student to a new district he put himself out there to run for Vice President of Student Government Association. Munoz explained, “Harvard is obviously a selective school, the good schools are all selective. And they just don’t look at good grades, they look involvement and I knew I was going to be at North Penn for the remainder of my high school career, so I wanted to finally have a place to settle down. So I wanted to be more involved and SGA sounded like a good idea.”
Munoz’s adoration for Harvard inspired him to run for a position in the SGA office, as the same admiration for his dad has motivated him to want to go into the medical field.
“Med School is my plan after college, and I want to be a surgeon. I’m kind of focusing around spinal injuries. My inspiration to become a surgeon is my dad because he had an accident around 7 years ago so he is paralyzed from the chest down. I like to help people in general, that’s just who I am. That’s what kind of drove me to the medical field,” explained Munoz.
Munoz also shared one of his other goals in life, traveling. “I definitely want to travel the world. I would love to go to Ireland, Scotland, and England, explore all of Mexico- maybe go to Madagascar; I’m not sure if I want to visit all of Africa, Europe mainly, and since I was in fourth grade I wanted to learn Russian. Italy is also somewhere that I’d really like to go; I actually have an app for learning Italian.”
The rest is still unwritten for Max’s future but as Justin Timberlake sings, “as long as he’s got his suit and tie he’ll leave it all on the floor tonight.”