“My sister Keira legit freaks out every time I ask her to braid my hair at this point,” says Marley Tracy-Deuss ’27. “For the first year, she was like, ‘Flower, gleam, and glow, I love braiding your hair. It’s so pretty.’ And then now, she’s like, ‘Get me out of here!’”

Marley is known largely for his long blonde hair. “It’s definitely a big part of my identity,” he said. “It goes back to, don’t model yourself off of what already exists or what is already being done. Try and find a way to live within your own. For me, that’s been having long hair. It’s something I can take care of, something I can put care into, and I like how it looks.”

“I think that unrestricted expression without the fear of other people’s beliefs and perceptions of you is a really, really healthy way to live,” said Marley. It’s a principle that embodies much of his personality. “I wear my jewelry because I love it. I think jewelry is a beautiful thing. I like having nice stuff. But I think it’s a really great way of expressing yourself. I’ve gotten made fun of for wearing jewelry, for having earrings. But who cares what other people think about you? You shouldn’t let your actions or your expression be mitigated by other people.”

Marley also spoke about how meaningful jewelry is to him. “A lot of the time, it does have an emotional connection to me. People always say when you lose a personal belonging, it’s just material, right? But I really appreciate how jewelry acts as this sign of who you are, places you’ve been. It kind of acts as a directory of memories. I appreciate honoring those memories and remembering them through a visual accessory.”

Growing up in the Adirondacks, Marley has spent his life deeply connected with nature.

“When I went to North Country School, it felt a lot like living with the outdoors. They had a real highlight on sustainable living, agriculture, and outdoor conservation. I took a few outdoor leadership classes, and all that just made me really passionate about working in the outdoors, showing people the outdoors, and protecting the outdoors,” he says.

This has led to his work in STEM this year. “I got the opportunity to connect with Ezra Schwartzberg, Asa’s dad. He and the team at the Upper Saranac Foundation took me on as a member of this project—We’re growing Vallisneria americana, propagating it in the greenhouses so that we can go back out and replant into the pond that we had harvested from,” said Marley. “It’s been a really great opportunity to work with people who are professionals, work in the outdoors, and do something that actually feels like it’s making a difference.”

Marley spoke about his passion for the project, saying, “We’re in such a dangerous spot environmentally right now. I feel like conservation is more important than ever because of modern energy practices and AI.”

“I think it’s just really great to work at something that is bigger than yourself. To have some sort of purpose driving forward, rather than just pleasure.”

In his free time, though, Marley is often in the music room. “We were raised in a very musical family,” he explained. “Our mother has been a musician since she was in her teens. Our grandfather has been playing music a lot longer than any of us have been alive, so we were raised around music.”

“I started learning different instruments, getting to know music. Then Orrin and Gabe, our drummer, found this chemistry playing with each other, and they started feeling this passion for grunge, rock, and really high-energy performances. I picked up the bass to fill the band’s role and decided that I loved playing it.”

This led to the formation of their band, Year of the Cicada. “We formed the band the year before we came to Northwood, in 2024. I play bass, Orrin plays guitar, and we have a friend over in Potsdam who plays the drums,” Marley said. “Even though it’s a scary thing to get up on stage and perform, it’s so cathartic doing a long show like that. Expressing yourself through music, getting to see people’s reactions, and just being in that team with Orrin and Gabe is this really cathartic feeling of working as a whole.”

At Northwood, one of Marley’s favorite memories is going on Red Rocks LEAP. “It’s those moments sitting around the fire at the end of every night as Bobby asks us what our happys and crappys were. We’d all complain about the heat or being dehydrated, and then everyone would do their happys, and it would just be the most wholesome, heartwarming shit. Just about how great the groups are, how grateful we were for the time, talking about all these amazing opportunities and experiences we get to have, the big achievements when someone does a really tough climb outside of their level.”

“It’s also just when I get to live into who I want to be,” Marley said. “I get to go out and climb for a week. No class. Just me, some fun people, and the rock. It’s such a great time to work on yourself, socially, but also just having that directed time to go and climb. I’ve been able to make so much progress working with people who are really experienced, like Bobby or Casey Henley, and learning how to lead climb. I couldn’t lead climb before I went to Red Rocks that year, and by the time I was coming out of it, I felt competent, I felt confident in leading, building anchors, protecting myself, and keeping everyone safe.”

The trip proved to be one of Marley’s favorite memories despite travel setbacks. “Last year, nothing was going right for Red Rocks,” he said. “It was scheduled for Thanksgiving break, and because of the government shutdown, all of our flights got canceled. We were all unsure if this was going to end up working. Then it got pushed out to spring. We got to the airport, and we missed the first plane for one reason or another, and Bobby was getting really close to wanting to pull the plug on the whole thing—just call it for Red Rocks for the year.”

“Every single person in the group was like, ‘No, I will sit here in this airport for six hours to wait for a flight so I can go be in Red Rocks,’” said Marley. “We waited, we took the flight, then we had people get separated. By the end of the day, we were getting in like 12 hours late and it was one in the morning. We ended up staying at this AirBNB, and it had a pool, a pool table, a ping pong table, a kitchen, TVs.

We were there for like two days, two and a half days, and because it was so hot, we couldn’t really go outside and climb. But it was just so fantastic to get to spend that time with people because, at least as a day student, I never have that with anyone here. Just living with a group of people, getting to actually talk with them and have conversations. It was so great to spend time with especially Uma and Willow. They’re great. We cooked dinner with Jacob. That was great.”