SNOHOMISH — Author, musician, filmmaker, tennis ace — it’s impossible to describe Chad Merkley with a single word.
“I’m doing all right, getting good grades
The future’s so bright, I gotta wear shades”
The top singles player for the Snohomish High School boys tennis team, Merkley wrote and published a book at age 8, plays piano well enough to earn a wage at it — he entertains Friday nights at Mill Creek Country Club, among other places — composes songs and has recorded two CDs.
“(Chad) can do anything he choses to do,” his mother, Amber Merkley, said. “If he’s passionate about it and has the desire, the sky’s the limit.”
Combining his creative impulses, Chad Merkley has written, directed, acted in and scored two movies and says filmmaking is where his future lies.
“Writing, composing, getting the audio and visual together, that’s the next venue that seemed plausible for me,” he said. “I love filmmaking.”
Merkley’s first film, a community-service piece about teenage drinking and driving called “Across the Bridge,” won the top prizes for picture and soundtrack at the Eastside Film Festival in February.
He took a decidedly different path — and showed a determination to stay true to his vision — in his next project, a crime film titled “Crime Warlords of Snohomish County.”
“I did it somewhat in jest, a little farming community gets hit by a crime wave,” Merkley said. “That title went through some controversy. So many people wanted it to be different, but I wanted ‘Snohomish County’ in it.”
That kind of resolve has played a part in all of Merkley’s accomplishments.
“Everything that he’s pursued and done has come from a passion within him,” Amber Merkley said. “He picks something and has the desire to be the best he can be at it.”
Chad Merkley’s pursuit of creative excellence began early. He was 7 when he wrote “Too Many Me’s” and won the Steck-Vaughn Publish-A-Book contest over more than 8,000 entries nationwide.
The tale of an 8-year-old genius who discovers that cloning himself to do chores isn’t such a good idea sprang from an imagination nurtured and encouraged by Merkley’s parents, Amber and Jerry, maternal grandparents Albert and Virginia Armistead, and elementary schoolteacher Julie Filer.
“They gave me the confidence,” Chad Merkley said. “I believe confidence is the fuel to follow your dreams.”
Albert Armistead died of cancer about seven years ago, but before that Merkley paid tribute to his grandfather’s influence — and teased him — by naming the main character of “Too Many Me’s” after him.
“That was a joke because he hated the name Albert,” Merkley said. “He never went by it … it was just a joke that I always called him ‘Albert.’”
Merkley was 8 when the book was published, the same year he began two more pursuits: playing tennis and the piano.
“Piano was one of those things that I wasn’t sure about at first,” Merkley said. “I heard a song on the radio and asked my teacher if she could teach it to me. She got the sheet music and taught it to me … I realized if I got good enough, I could play any song I hear.”
Merkley began writing music and at age 12 recorded his first CD, “Inspired,” playing his own songs and some of his classical favorites. A second CD of contemporary songs, “By Firelight,” and his own business, “Chad Merkley Pianist Extraordinaire,” followed.
Merkley is a senior at the Chrysalis School, a private facility in Woodinville that he’s attended since seventh grade. Because Chrysalis does not offer tennis, Merkley has been allowed to compete for Snohomish High School the past four years.
“He’s a hell of a tennis player … (who) spends a lot of time developing his game, as he does with everything,” Panthers head coach Dick Jansen said. “It’s a vehicle to him … (a physical) way for him to express himself.”
College — specifically Chapman College in Orange, Calif., which has a strong film study program — is Merkley’s immediate goal. Even as a straight-A student with a solid resume, he knows getting into Chapman won’t be easy, so he is preparing accordingly.
Considering what he has already accomplished, that’s almost as good as a guarantee.
“Things are going great,
and they’re only getting better I’m doing all right, getting good grades
The future’s so bright, I gotta wear shades.”
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