Marathon High prom court shares memories, seeks last-minute votes

Marathon High’s prom court is taking one more lap before Saturday’s crowning, and the appeal is as local as it gets: five boys, five girls, and a stack of memories that run from little league to weightlifting platforms to beach afternoons after class. The king and queen will be decided Saturday, May 16, after a peer-nomination process that opened March 24 and closed March 27 at 4 p.m., following the 2025 reign of Will Buchanan and Maxine Olson.

Daniel Messori

Daniel Messori leaned into the kind of school-memory shorthand that only makes sense in a tight-knit senior class. He pointed to varsity soccer and said he was nominated because he has personality, a nod that fits the easygoing, team-first style that often turns a campus favorite into prom court material.

That answer says a lot about how Marathon High builds its senior traditions. Around here, a prom court spot is not just about popularity, but about the classmates who have been visible in the halls, on the field and in the everyday rhythm of the school year.

Vlannier Borrego

Vlannier Borrego took his memory back to little league, where the old yellow team nickname, The Mustard, still has enough pull to make people smile. It is the kind of detail that instantly places him in the community, where youth sports often overlap with school identity long before senior year arrives.

His pick also reflects how Marathon students often carry one another’s history with them. A prom court profile becomes more than a beauty contest or a popularity snapshot when it brings forward a nickname, a team color and the younger days that shaped how classmates know each other now.

Max Childress

Max Childress highlighted two trips to state in weightlifting, a credential that gives his prom court profile real athletic weight. In a school where strength sports matter and results travel quickly through the student body, that kind of experience is a big part of how a senior gets remembered.

His memory also helps explain why the court feels rooted in Marathon rather than pulled from a generic high school template. The same students who compete at the state level are the ones sitting in class, showing up at school events and turning up again when it is time to vote on prom royalty.

Shavely Lopez

Shavely Lopez brought the story back to the moment she arrived from Key West in eighth grade, when she did not know anyone yet. Her proudest memory was making friends after that move, which makes her court profile feel especially personal in a town where finding your people matters.

That kind of transition is a familiar one across the Keys, where families move, schools stay small and social circles can change fast. Lopez’s answer captures the social glue of Marathon High: once a student is in, the friendships can become the defining memory of the whole school run.

Shamar Wright

Shamar Wright remembered sixth grade, a coronavirus video and being known as the always-smiling classmate. The memory reaches back to a strange, compressed time in school life, when humor and steadiness could mean as much as anything happening in class.

His answer also gives the prom court a softer edge. In a room full of athletes, leaders and school personalities, Wright’s story is the one that reminds people how much of high school is built on how students treat one another when things feel unsettled.

Katerin 'Kat' Guerra

Katerin 'Kat' Guerra said her favorite memory was beach hangs with friends after school, the kind of simple ritual that feels completely at home in the Florida Keys. It is a memory that does not need much explanation for Marathon families, who know how much social life can spill outward toward the water when class ends.

That detail gives her court profile a distinctly local shape. Prom season may be the formal occasion, but the friendships that matter most are often built in the ordinary hours, after the bell rings and the day opens up to the beach, the breeze and the ride home.

Roland Gonzalez

Roland Gonzalez focused on a close friend group and emphasized positivity and kindness, a combination that sounds small until you realize how often it holds a senior class together. In a school the size of Marathon High, those traits can make a student as memorable as any trophy case entry.

His answer fits the tone of the whole prom court feature, which feels less like a ceremony announcement and more like a portrait of how seniors see one another. The court is built on recognition, but it is also built on the people who make school feel welcoming enough that younger students want to stay involved.

Justice 'Voo' Lee Isom

Justice 'Voo' Lee Isom’s profile carries the loudest resume on the court, and not just because she has piled up state titles in weightlifting and track. A February report from Marathon Middle High School said the Lady Fins finished ninth in both the Olympic and Traditional state weightlifting competitions out of more than 130 teams, and that Lee placed second in both categories, proof that her prom court place sits beside a serious athletic record.

The backdrop stretches even further. In February 2025, Marathon finished No. 2 in Florida in traditional lifts and seventh in Olympic lifts, with Keys lifters earning 11 state medals overall, and Lee won gold in the traditional event and silver in Olympic competition. A March story also described her as Monroe County’s most decorated track athlete in recorded history after another district medal haul, which helps explain why her court profile also points to student leadership roles.

Mackenzie Budi

Mackenzie Budi said the friendships at Marathon shaped her, and that simple line carries a lot of senior-year meaning. For a student from a place where class size is small and rivalries are usually friendly, the people around her are not background noise, they are the story.

Her reflection also helps the prom court piece do what the best local-school stories do: make the senior class feel specific, not interchangeable. Budi’s answer keeps the focus on the long arc of shared lunches, shared classes and shared memories that now lead into one final school tradition.

Addison Collins

Addison Collins brought the kind of sports story people keep retelling, the soccer trip where the team bus burned down but the group still turned it into a bonding experience and won the game. It is dramatic, funny and stubborn in the best athletic sense, the kind of memory that sticks because everyone involved had to keep going together.

That is the right note to close on for a prom court built around personality as much as polish. The votes may narrow to one king and one queen on Saturday, May 16, but the bigger picture is already clear: Marathon’s seniors are being remembered for the teams, friendships and routines that made this school year feel unmistakably theirs.