Bellport High School Student, Leader, and ‘Voice for His Generation’

By Michaela Christman 20 October 2015

Hurtful words have never held back 17-year-old Marquise Steward. Since around second grade, he can remember being hassled by some of his classmates. Often, the taunting was because of his noticeably colorful and expressive personality.

“I’ve always been the type that liked to make a statement, and a lot of children couldn’t understand that. I couldn’t even really understand that,” Steward recalled.

As he got older, his classmates began to question his sexuality. Questions like, “Are you gay?” and “Do you even like girls?” were recurrent throughout his time in elementary and middle school.

Steward often told himself that people “just didn’t understand.” Though it was hard at times, he tried to ignore negativity as much as he could and turned to his mother for support and as a best friend.

Ninth grade was the beginning of a “new” Marquise Steward.

“It took me a while… but I finally said to myself, ‘I don’t care what people think, I’m so sick and tired of this, I’m just going to rock the world,” he said in a recent interview.

Steward decided to join the Bellport High School cheerleading team, making him the first male cheerleader in Bellport in 22 years. He stopped doubting himself, he said, and decided to shut out the negativity around him by taking initiative.

“I read an article someone wrote for our school paper talking about the fact there was no Gay-Straight Alliance at our school,” he said.

Reading that article was enough to motivate Steward. Soon after, he was running through the halls of Bellport High with what he described as an “ugly GSA board,” yelling to everyone that there was a Gay-Straight Alliance meeting that afternoon— and he wasn’t even slightly embarrassed about it, he said.

That September afternoon, around 40 students and teachers packed into a classroom to support the club during its first meeting. The room was so full that more

chairs needed to be brought in from other classrooms to give people a place to sit. Steward was shocked, he said, that “all of these people came to support me.”

But the newly founded GSA club soon dwindled away because the South Country School District administration was unable to give it approval due to budgetary and contractual issues, according to local newspaper reports.

In a March 2014 letter to the South Country school district administration, Steward took the role as the voice for his generation. He wrote: “I am writing this letter to address the appropriation and demand for a ‘Gay-Straight Alliance’ to be added to our already diverse extracurricular activities within our school.” Steward followed by explaining the positives that could come from a GSA, and shortly after, the club was approved.

Joining cheerleading and starting the alliance got the ball rolling for Steward. Once someone who was taunted by his classmates, he has now taken leading positions in four extracurricular organizations- even founding a few of them – and is a member of five more.

As for his leadership positions, Steward is the unofficial founder of the Gay- Straight Alliance at Bellport High School, president of the Future Business Leaders of America club, senior editor of yearbook and CEO of Virtual Enterprise’s “Savor the Flavor,”

Steward is also a member of the National and French National honor societies, Urban League Society, Peer Mediation, and The Encampment for Citizenship. He is graduating with his advanced regents diploma with a business distinction, mastering in social studies with a GPA of 89.997.

Those who know Steward describe him as a passionate person and a leader who is driven to succeed. “Marquise is not only kind-hearted, but when it comes down to it, he is dedicated and passionate about what he does,” said Patrick Ferrell, a high school senior and vice president under Steward in the Future Business Leaders of America club.

Vicki Zseller, a psychologist at Bellport High School, also described Steward as an intelligent leader. “Marquise is often chosen to be a leader of many different groups or clubs because of his leadership qualities and how well-spoken he is,” Zseller wrote in an email. “He truly is an amazing person and I consider myself very lucky to be a part of his inner circle.”

Senior year is halfway through, and Steward has applied early-decision to New York University’s Stern School of Business in hopes of majoring in international

marketing. Wherever he goes to college, he said, he plans to keep in touch with members from each of his clubs in between assignments and the new activities he’ll be participating in.