In Gregory Maguire’s novel Wicked, Dr. Dillamond is a goat that possesses human-like traits such as the ability to communicate with humans. This is, of course, fantasy, but humans possessing goat-like qualities do exist in real life. For a human capable of goat-like feats, one does not need to look any further than Ames High senior MarleyBob Dobyns. Dobyns grew up in a tiny town in Texas called Sweetwater, which is the home of the WASP’s Aviator field and the world’s largest rattlesnake round-up. When she was 10 years old, Dobyns moved to Ankeny with her mother, father, and her brother, Riley. Eventually she moved to Ames, where she is also accompanied by her two cats, Cledo and Sketch, and her dog, Frida. “I grew up in a highly conservative area [in Texas], but strangely enough, it turned out quite liberal, probably thanks to my parents,” Dobyns said. “The Ames community was like a breath of fresh air for us because our family fit in better, both politically and intellectually.” Other than political orientation, Dobyns cited education as another main difference between Ames and Sweetwater. “Obviously, Ames is highly competitive academically, but if you were raised here you might take it for granted,” Dobyns said. “Growing up in a lesser academic community taught me to truly appreciate my education.” Dobyns also said she was “definitely a hot-weather gal and would not miss that aspect of Iowa” but could not live without “Peaches and Cream Sweet Corn in the summer.” After high school, Dobyns will be attending Iowa State University as a member of the diving team and working towards a possible major in animal science and a minor in biomedical illustration. “After undergrad, I would like to attend the vet school and earn a DVM (Doctor of Veternary Medicine) as a large animal vet,” Dobyns said. “Ideally, I would like to put both my DVM and Spanish to use in a Spanish-speaking country through the Peace Corps.” Other than diving, Dobyns is involved in school, church and other activities such as coaching a jump rope team at the middle school in the spring, being Co-President of SHEPH, and being Vice President of the National Honors Society. She is an active leader in her youth group and works in a lab at Iowa State and part-time at Jacqueline’s Photography Studio. Dobyns also likes to make others laugh, “usually through funny faces or noises, especially goat noises.” The goat noises must come with the goat face because as Dobyns explained, “you can’t do the goat noise without the face because it’s like macaroni without cheese.” “The goat face started in 6th period AP Calculus when we were learning about limits,” Dobyns said. “The inside calculus joke about limits is that you don’t think about them, even though you want to, like when Mr. Sparkman says, ‘Don’t think of a zebra.’ You think of a zebra anyway instead of not thinking of a zebra. “One day, someone pointed out that zebras are like goats, and I made the goat face and noise. Since that day, when instructed not to think of a zebra, we think of goats or at least my face as a goat instead.” In addition to mimicking a goat, Dobyns has a few other traits that set her apart from her peers. She has a phobia of tape, stickers, cellophane and saran wrap, and cries during almost every movie she sees. She also wears glasses without a prescription and her facebook language is set to ‘pirate.’ If one can only remember one thing about Dobyns, it should be to embrace ones inner goat.