Outstanding Young Alumni

2011 San Marcos High School
Outstanding Young Alumnus Award
Taryn Guerrero Davis (’03)

In 2011, an Outstanding Young Alumnus award for outstanding merit or achievement that targets young alumni under the age of 35, was created and presented for the first time.

Taryn Guerrero Davis is a 2003 SMHS graduate. She married her high school sweetheart, Michael Davis, also a 2003 graduate with plans to live happily ever after.

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An article in the Huffington Post tells this story: When she was just 21, Taryn Guerrero Davis received devastating news: Her husband, Corporal Michael Davis, had been killed in Iraq. While her family provided emotional support, she still felt lost and alone. When her Google search for “widow” turned up the result: “Do you mean window?” she knew she had to take action. Taryn created The American Widow Project to provide resources to the 3,000+ other women around the country whose husbands have died in Iraq and Afghanistan.

     Feeling lost and alone in the new world she’d been thrown into, Taryn Davis began traveling around the country to hear other women’s stories of love, tragedy… and overall survival. In hearing their accounts, she hoped to learn more about the title that been had given to her: that of a military widow.

     What began as her own personal journey, has expanded into a non-profit organization, a documentary film, and a growing website. She has grasped on and embraced her new life with all the enthusiasm and passion she had when Michael was still alive. Inspired solely by the willpower and strength of other women in her shoes,  she has found that true love is eternal, that the lessons and things her husband said and did still run through her veins, and most of all, that she is not alone.

     The American Widow Project is a non-profit organization dedicated to the new generation of those who have lost the heroes of yesterday, today and tomorrow, with an emphasis on healing through sharing stories, tears and laughter.

Taryn and the American Widow Project have also been honored in the following:        

* 2011 Newsweek Magazine’s “150 Women Who Shake the World”         

* Diller-Von Furstenburg Foundation’s “People’s Voice Award” Winner         

* L’Oreal’s 2010 National Woman of Worth         

* VH1’s Do Something Award Recipient         

* Austin Woman Magazine’s “10 Women to Watch”

     Taryn has also been named a 2011 Top Ten finalist for the prestigious CNN Heroes Award. Voting continues online  - type in CNN and Heroes and the poll comes up. The 2011 Hero will be announced in December.

Taryn spends a great deal of time traveling across the country with the American Widow Project, and we were unsure about her schedule for tonight’s event. When I contacted her, and suggested that if she was on the road, she could have her parents, Tobi and Roland Guerrero, accept for her, she said, “Michael and I fell in love marching in the Rattler Band on that football field. I wouldn’t miss this night.” 

 In 2011, The San Marcos High School Alumni Association and the San Marcos Education Foundation saluted Taryn – and Michael -   Davis  with the first Outstanding Young Alumnus Award.