(Photo submitted) Berrett Wilcox’s senior portrait.

WARREN — As far as senior years go Warren High School 2025 graduate Berrett Wilcox had a banner year making the all-state jazz band, a first for a Warren High School student, passing his advance placement tests and preparing to head west to Utah for college this fall.

Wilcox, is the son of Holly Wilcox of Warren. He is a 2025 graduate of Warren High School and plans to attend Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, to study statistics and begin a career as an actuary.

Wilcox was one of four Warren students to receive scholarships from the Elks Club of Parkersburg for 2025. He received a $500 scholarship from the organization.

At Warren, Wilcox was involved in the school’s music program, instrumental and voice.

“So that was my main activity at Warren. I did as much as I could with that,” he said. “I played the trombone in the concert band, jazz band, marching band and in the orchestras for the musicals.”

(Photo submitted) Berrett Wilcox playing his solo part in his senior year in Warren's competition show "Kaleidoscope."

Wilcox was able to qualify for all-state jazz honors in music.

“One thing that I did that wasn’t necessarily part of the program at Warren was I auditioned for the all-state jazz band and I got in,” he said. “So I was a part of the all-state jazz band, which was a big honor as I was the first in Warren High School history to be able to do that.”

In addition to the trombone he also plays piano.

“I do play piano, but just a little bit,” he said. “I don’t really play anymore as the trombone took up most of my time.

“I also sing in the Warren choirs, bass chorus and a Capella.”

(Photo submitted) Barrett Wilcox playing his solo part in his senior year in Warren's competition show "Kaleidoscope."

Wilcox also lent his music talents to his church serving as the church music coordinator.

“What I do is I have the responsibility to kind of choose the hymns that were sung every single week and relate them to the talks,” he said. “I would also go in for the conductor if they couldn’t make it, and schedule different special musical numbers for the church. I plan to continue doing that until I leave for college.”

Wilcox is also part of the seminary program at his church.

“It’s an early morning scripture study every year when I was in high school,” he said. “It’s every day before school for an hour, I was class president for a year and that entailed helping handle some things. It was fun.”

Wilcox was also an active member of the church youth group.

(Photo submitted) Berrett Wilcox with his band instructor, Courtney Clark, after his all-state jazz band performance in Cleveland.

“I helped plan activities,” he said. “We would sometimes play games or we would do service projects.”

Wilcox said the decision to study statistics comes from his life-long love for math.

“All my life, I’ve had a big love for math, and it’s always been one of my favorites along with music,” he said. “I’ve always enjoyed doing little math puzzles and stuff with problems to solve and think about. I’ve always tried to challenge myself the beast I could by taking the hardest math classes I could. I’ve always been interested in it (math) inside and outside of school.”

Wilcox said he finds some of the puzzles and problems on YouTube.

“One thing I have always enjoyed was really knowing why certain things are instead of just having a formula and plugging in all the numbers to it.” he said. “There is a lot you can read about or learn about that explains the deeper concepts behind the different formulas and concepts.

(Photo submitted) Berrett Wilcox playing the trombone at All-state Jazz in Cleveland.

Wilcox added he has read books on statistics that go over applications and how it is best used in real life.

“It’s kind of interesting to learn about,” he said.

Wilcox said when it came to deciding on a major, something related to math was a natural step to continue his studies. He said his plans are to pursue a career as an actuary.

“That’s my goal and a degree in statistics is a good avenue to get there,” he said. “It’s a profession where you calculate chances of events happening.”

He said there are many different kinds. If he were working for an insurance company he would calculate the chance of an individual being involved in an accident.

(Photo submitted) Berrett Wilcox, after receiving the Woody Herman Jazz award at his end of the year band program at Warren. The Woody Herman Jazz Award® was created in 1988, shortly after Herman’s death, to honor outstanding jazz students. The Woody Herman Award honors a jazz student for outstanding contributions to the Pioneer Jazz Program. This award is presented to the runner-up to the Louis Armstrong Award.

“I could help to determine the rates for an insurance company to charge,” he said. “Don’t overcharge where customers won’t buy and not undercharge and lose money.”

He added he took advanced placement courses in American history and biology. Last year he took AP research.

“That was a fun class for me,” he said. “In that class you do a full-length research paper.”

He added it has earned him some college credit.

“It was a nice way to challenge myself,” he said. “It made my education a little more rigorous, which I have always been happy to do.”

He said he passed the required tests for advanced placement and will be able bypass some first year courses in college.

He had also been a volunteer tutor at this school and volunteered at Marietta Memorial, at the main facility and at the Belpre campus.

In addition to math and music Wilcox also enjoys playing a sport that has become popular lately – pickle ball.

“At a family reunion my cousins were playing and they were extremely good as were my grandparents,” he said.”They all played tennis, my grandma was a very good tennis player before she stopped playing.

“So naturally they were all good at pickle ball and it’s just a fun little game I like to play; it’s a nice sport.”

From there he has continued to play and has gotten many of his friends involved as well. He said they play as much as they can. He said there are more and more places to play. He said they play most at Jackson Park and City Park.

(Photo submitted) Berrett Wilcox and his band instructor, Courtney Clark, and his sister, Elanor Wilcox, who graduated three years earlier and also participated in the band program.

(Photo submitted) Berrett Wilcox dressed for the senior prom.

(Photo submitted) Berrett Wilcox giving the "Y" symbol in front of the Y on the mountain at Brigham Young University where he will be attending college in the fall.

(Photo submitted) Barrett Wilcox playing pickleball, his favorite pastime activity, after trombone.

(Photo submitted) Berrett Wilcox holding up his BYU pennant.