2024 Students of Distinction

Richard Roppolo navigates change with resilience and vision

Gig Harbor Now is posting profiles featuring the Students of Distinction being honored by the Greater Gig Harbor Foundation. These students will be celebrated during a banquet from 6 to 9 p.m. on Wednesday, May 15, 2024, at Ocean5, 5268 Point Fosdick Dr.

Richard Roppolo 

School: Gig Harbor High School 

Category: Music, Arts and Drama Achievement  

Change can be formative, stressful, or inevitable, but it can also demonstrate how precarious and fragile our foundations can be. For the last seven years, Richard Roppolo has been practicing the craft of acting, and in that time he has seen plenty of changes. Five different directors, two principals, and an assistant director have come and gone, some with remarkable rapidity and in quick succession. Richard has a word for that kind of change: chaos.  

Richard Roppolo

Embracing the winds of change

Managing that array of different tastes and interest, converging and bisecting values, and “new ideas and new ways of doing things” has proved a challenge but also demonstrated to Richard just how important a stable environment is for a production — and the individual constituent members — to thrive. The experience has given Richard a unique perspective on change and stability.    

Lessons learned, paths explored 

While studying computer science at Tacoma Community College, Richard will be able to lay down roots and build a further foundation on which to develop and thrive. A future away from the stage does not mean the lessons learned are far behind, and he says he hopes to “build a space” where reliability and security are of paramount importance, and where everyone can feel included and safe.

Richard Roppolo

Category: Music, Arts and Drama Achievement 

Parents: Christina and Richard Roppolo