Medical Lake High School: Gabriella Ornelas never let the Gray fire destruction interfere with high school goals

Medical Lake High School senior Gabriella Ornelas had a full plate during her high school career.

She took AP World History her sophomore year and spent weeks combing through the textbook, summarizing each chapter and highlighting notable facts and figures. It was hard work, Ornelas said, but she passed the AP test with a 3 out of 5, and realized history was her favorite subject.

Academics aside, she participated in the Associated Student Body all four years and choir for two. She was also part of the Future Business Leaders of America, Key Club, National Honor Society, the cheer team, softball and basketball, for which she helped manage a team.

The last thing Ornelas needed then, the summer before her junior year, was to worry about the Gray fire, which swept through Medical Lake.

When the fire hit, Ornelas and her mother were working at a summer camp in Cheney, while her father was home with the family’s four dogs and two bunnies. They suddenly began receiving calls and texts from friends and family checking if they were OK.

Ornelas said she initially thought the fire was closer to Silver Lake and advised a friend in the area to call her dad for help evacuating herself and her animals. That friend then told Ornelas her own neighborhood was under evacuation, which is when the severity of the situation hit.

“I freaked out, and I called my dad, and I ran to my mom’s office, and I was like, ‘What are we going to do? What’s happening?’ ” she said. “Obviously, then I had no idea what was going to happen, and I was more concerned about ‘Where am I going tonight? What am I doing tomorrow?’ ”

Ornelas and her family, dogs and bunnies included, evacuated their home, as did the friend who alerted her of the evacuation notice. Later that evening, Ornelas’ grandpa went back to the neighborhood and saw the destruction. After receiving news that their home had burned down, the Ornelases stayed with family in Idaho.

Ornelas said she and her family were blessed to have community support. A family friend let the Ornelas crew stay with her for a few days, and teacher Tina Shulls took Ornelas shopping for new clothes. A friend’s mother also bought Ornelas things she’d need to move into the family’s rental home.

“I had never felt so blessed and thankful and loved in my whole life,” she said. “It took a village, I would say, to restart everything. But we had the people there, and they were so willing to help, and it made everything 100 times easier.”

Counselor Lisa Prewitt, the junior class counselor at the time, said 15 to 20 students and five staff members were directly affected by the fires. While the students were dealing with so much outside of school, Prewitt was impressed by their commitment to their education.

“Junior year typically tends to be the most academically rigorous year and they came in, Gabby included, and they still did great and kept their GPAs up, kept their straight As,” she said. “It was really amazing to see as they were displaced and living in totally different environments than what they were used to.”

Ornelas said school felt like an escape in the days and weeks after the fire, a place she could go to forget about worries about insurance and when her family could move into another home.

Now settled, Ornelas can look forward to attending the University of Washington as an elementary education major. Medical Lake will always have a special place in her heart, though.

“It’s a great community with the most amazing people,” she said.