Della Churchill is almost a typical teenager. The Wrangell High School senior’s favorite food is pasta. Her favorite book is “Mindset” by Carol Dweck.

“And I do have a favorite song and it reminds me of my dad,” she said. “It is called ‘Guitar Slinger’ and it’s by Crossin Dixon.”

This is where Della Churchill’s normal teenage years end.

Her father, Randy William Churchill Jr., passed away on Feb. 22, 2023, at age 39 after sustaining injuries in a logging accident. Saturday will mark two years since the tragedy.

“I have had a lot of challenges growing up, and wrestling has definitely helped me be able to push through those things that need a really strong mental toughness,” Churchill said. “And when that happened all I wanted to do was wrestle because it is one thing in my life that’s stayed constant and hasn’t changed. One thing that I can control…So when things are tough for me I just like to be in the wrestling room and this is a way during this time that I can still be in that room.”

Wrestling is life to Della Churchill and life has wrestled her back hard.

As a 112-pound freshman in the 2021-22 season, she earned her bruises with a 5-5 regular season mark, placed second in the Southeast Regional tournament (brother Randy III won at 152) and went to state, where she had one win and two losses and her brother placed third.

As a 113-pound sophomore, she was 22-6, placed third in the prestigious ACS tournament (her senior brother Randy III won the 160-pound title), won her first Southeast championship (Randy III his third), reached the quarterfinals at the state tournament and placed fourth (Randy won state), finishing the season with a 25-8 record with her father on hand to watch, cheer and instruct.

“Oh, he meant a lot — a lot,” she said. “He’s the one that got me into wrestling when I was five years old…When I was younger, the only voice I could hear was my dad’s and then when I got into middle school and high school it was his voice and Carney’s (coach Jack) voice and so, yeah, pretty much he has been the reason why I have been in wrestling and why I have been doing it for so long.”

Her father would not see her repeat as Southeast champion at 114 pounds in the 2023-24 season or be crowned as the Outstanding Wrestler. She reached the semifinals at state and placed third, finishing the season with a 32-4 record.

That November, while wrestling at the ACS tournament, her grandfather Duane Ihnat passed from cancer.

“My grandpa was really sweet,” she said. “He was a big, tall guy who looked intimidating, but really he was a big teddy bear to me. He would do anything for me.”

And in November 2023, a landslide in Wrangell claimed the lives of her friend Mara Heller, 16, and Mara’s family.

“My friend Mara was a very sweet person. She was never mean to anybody. She was always positive and the life of the party,” she said.

This season, Churchill went into regions with a 28-4 record at 120 pounds, claimed her third championship and second Outstanding Wrestler honor, and reached the quarterfinals at state in December, placing fourth with a 31-6 mark.

The state championships were honoring girls wrestling and former Mt. Edgecumbe coach Mike Kimber, the man responsible for getting ASAA to start a girls tournament, was on hand.

“Della is a great wrestler,” he said. “More importantly, she is a great person and I think she gets that from her family, her lineage.”

Churchill said the teachings of her father are with her at every match and that is how she stays focused.

“It takes dedication, determination and focus,” she said. “You have got to have a good mental mindset. Because if you don’t you lose before a match even starts. Most of wrestling is mental. You have to make sure you have a strong head and you’re not getting discouraged really easily. And you have got to be willing to put in the work. Insane hours, you have got to be able to be okay with missing some time in the summer to go to wrestling camps. You’ve got to be able to wake up early in the morning during the season and go workout with people. Go learn more technique. And you have got to be willing to put in the extra time.”

Churchill keeps an “All In Wrestler’s Journal” to enhance and reflect on the journey rather than just focus on the destination; she wakes up at 6 a.m. in season for early mat room work before school with local wrestlers, including her 2003 state champion uncle Harry Churchill, then 8 a.m. strength training for 40 minutes; in the summer she runs and stays active as a tour guide, attends wrestling camps — last summer the Kaizen Intensive camp in Idaho — and has belief in herself.

“Growing up my mom and dad have always taught me and my brothers to be really strong and resilient,” Churchill said. “We’ve been through other things that were really difficult and challenging, but we had overcome those and so I feel like those types of challenges kind of helped prepare us, in a way, for these things and I also just really believe in myself and I know that I can get through anything. Especially after going through losing my dad, then losing my grandpa, then losing one of my friends…It is not every day that somebody has that happen to them and the fact that that happened to me and I am able to walk around and be the best self that I can be was really uplifting and I just try to be the best version of myself that I can even though I have all these difficult things…A lot of people think, ‘Oh, this person is going to do this and go down the wrong road,’ and I don’t want to be that type of person, I want to prove them wrong. So that’s what keeps me pushing to be the best person I can be.”

Wrangell High School seniors have to do a project that involves giving back to the community, and Churchill worked with the Stikine Middle School Wolves this season and coach Jack Carney.

“I wanted to do this because I have always loved wrestling, I have been wrestling for 13 years and I just wanted to help the wrestlers get better at it, too,” she said. “And I love this team. They are all really great kids and I just really like being a part of it.”

This past weekend an assistant coach couldn’t make the trip to the middle school championships at Thunder Mountain in Juneau.

“Since Della had been doing such a solid job with her senior project, showing up to every practice, building relationships with the wrestlers, working with them in technique, I asked for permission to take her on the trip,” Carney said. “The administration approved it. When we asked Della to coach with us, she practically leaped at the idea. It’s a good thing too. During the tourney in Juneau, I lost my voice on Friday. She ended up being my voice by Saturday. I’d try to yell something, and she’d echo what I was trying to say. But before that, at our home tournament, I noticed that when I was going to yell a move, she was already yelling it. Lots of clapping. Smiling. Doing her best to talk the kids up…Coaching from the corner is only a small part of the role. Della understands this. She understands that what she says after the matches, win or lose, matters. That time after the match digs deep, because the kids are usually ready to listen. A little encouragement about what they did well, correction for what they need to work on, coupled with a handshake or a hug goes a long way.”

When Ryder Ritchie, an eventual tourney champ at 92 pounds, hit the specifically advanced “rebar stack” move, something Carney hadn’t covered this season, he asked Churchill where be’d learned that.

And Della gave a shy, but proud, smile and said, “I showed him last week.”

Said Carney, “My guess it was one of the times she stayed a few minutes after practice to go over moves with motivated wrestlers…At Juneau she also helped the girls by making sure they shower, get to bed on time, wake up in time, braid the girls hair, make weight, make sure they get healthy food in them after weigh-ins, get suited up properly, get warmed up properly, and ready for the next match. It extends to what type of food to buy at the store, and takes a role from time-to-time. She made the chaperones’ job easier in the room and the coach’s job smooth on the mat.”

During the tourney Churchill instructed wrestler Clarie Rooney from defeat to a win.

“Yeah definitely there are a couple of them that I see a lot of myself in,” she said. “And you know, when some of them shut down, you just make them focus on you and be like, ‘You’ve got this,’ then you can see the spark come back and then, just like the last match she (Rooney) just had, she came back and she won the thing.”

Rooney wrote to her after saying, “I know that I wouldn’t have been able to do it. I have definitely gotten better from the tips you have given me. Thank you for wrestling with me when I need to wrestle a good wrestling partner…”

Ritchie thanked her for “helping me whenever I need it, helping me make good decisions, and all in all, making me a better wrestler.”

And Stikine’s Malachi Harrison said, “Della is an inspiration to us all. She was a team leader that helped us make the right choices. She is an excellent coach that dedicated her time and energy to us all. I’m so glad she is a coach this season.”

Another family brought her flowers during the tournament in appreciation.

“I was really happy and so grateful to be there,” Churchill said. “And I just loved being able to coach all of them, and hang out with them and joke around with them, and just kind of give them advice and things like that. I had a really great season with them. Going to every practice, wrestling around and teaching them stuff and making sure they were doing the moves right. And traveling to Juneau and making sure everybody had everything they needed, braiding the girls’ hair, making sure everybody is on weight and has their stuff ready to go and is ready to wrestle when their name is called and I just had a lot of fun doing it. It just reminds me of being in high school wrestling because I was the team captain for two years, so I kind of helped Carney make sure everybody was doing what they were supposed to be doing. This was a little more high maintenance but I enjoyed it so much.”

Asked if she sees herself as a hero to the youth she coaches and trains, Churchill paused.

“Maybe not a hero, but a mentor,” she said. “Yeah, I’d say so. They are my heroes. My mentors when I was a freshman, somebody that really helped me stay in the sport, was Liana Carney (three-time state champion). She was a senior, and I practiced with her all the time. She always gave me really good advice and so I thank her a lot for my freshman year.”

She also said brothers Randy III, 20, and Titan, 11, and her mother Celsee are heroes to her.

“Randy teaches Titan boxing and things like that,” she said. “But me and Randy are two years apart so we practically have been together our entire lives. So we’ve done a lot of wrestling throughout our entire lives…We got to be on the same wrestling team for two years and he was somebody who was a big role model to me in wrestling and life in general.”

Celsee Churchill said she is grateful for her children’s support and maturity.

“We talk to each other about everything and we’re just putting one foot in front of the other every day,” she said. “Sometimes it’s harder than others but we always have each other…Della is just amazing. I love her sportsmanship, the way she handles her wins and her losses with grace. She is happy for good competition so she can learn and grow. I always say I want to be just like her when I grow up.”

To Della Churchill, Feb. 22 is much smaller than the enormity of her father’s passing. She thinks of him daily.

“I’d say I am hardworking and caring like my dad, he was always willing to help anybody no matter what he would drop whatever he was doing to go help somebody else out. He was just a very giving person and I feel like in ways I am like him like that. He was a very strong person, he could just really do anything. He was always up for a good time and I just try to be a positive person like he was…and my mom is very giving. She cares about everybody and she protects her own. She is a very loyal person. I feel like I have gotten those qualities from her as well. And also she is very resilient.”

Wrangell has also given much.

“I just always loved being here and it’s just a sense of familiarity and growing up here,” Churchill said. “I feel like I love everything about it and how I can be so free and go outdoors. Even when I was younger it was like everybody — it takes a community, it takes a village — so everybody was watching everybody’s kids making sure that they are not doing anything they shouldn’t be doing and making sure they are safe. So I was always free-range to do what I wanted, like I could go ride my bike any time I wanted, I could go out on the boat. Everybody is keeping an eye on everyone too. I just love how close of a community it is.”

The F/V DELLA G is ported there.

“My dad was a gillnetter my entire life and then my grandpa (Randy Churchill Sr.) owns a few boats as well,” Churchill said. “So I know how to work the boats when me and my friends go out all the time. I don’t feel like they get annoyed, I feel like they rely on me to do that, ‘Della’s going to have this figured out.’ I am pretty much the mom of the group. I make sure everybody has life jackets, I make sure everybody is there at a certain time, I make sure we have enough time to go to different places when we’re on the boat.”

She realizes she had no control over Feb. 22.

She said talking about that day helps sometimes. She had been sick and out of school for a month and a half prior with illness, and was in bed when her mother Celsee and grandmother Carol woke her.

“I just remember waking up to my mom and my grandma running up to me with my bedroom door open, and they were yelling my name, walking towards me while I was sleeping I just like shot up,” Churchill said. “And they were crying and I immediately knew it was something to do with my dad. And I was like ‘Where’s my dad? Where’s my dad?’ and they told me. I just kind of shut down. It was really hard and we just kind of cried in my room for a while and then I was like, ‘I need to go, we need to go and make sure he is OK.’ And they were like, ‘No. you don’t. You’re not understanding what we’re saying. There’s nothing we can do.’ And I was getting ready, ‘We have to go, let’s go.’ But there was nothing we could do. It was a really hard day, especially, but it has been hard ever since…I have done a lot of things to help with that by staying close with my family, being able to talk about him as much as I can and with my friends and my family…Going to therapy, being in the wrestling room, things like that have really helped me.”

She said she has never thought about hurting herself in any way, “but there was a point and time where I was really depressed, I couldn’t get out of bed. There was nothing that I could really do or anything that somebody could do or say to cheer me up but I never did have those thoughts. I just felt really destroyed. I know I have certain family members that also struggle with depression and I just try to help them in the best way that I can and that would kind of distract me from feeling it myself.”

To help others she knew she had to help herself.

“My friends were definitely a big help,” she said. “My friends would come over or text me and stuff, like trying to make me get out of the house and do something. Definitely my friends helped for sure.”

There was another healer Churchill had known for years.

“Wrestling was the main thing that, like, it just takes my mind off of everything when it is wrestling season,” she said. “That one is a really big one, too. That is during the time where it was really close to my dad’s death my friends are just really uplifting and know what I am going through. So they try to keep my mind off of feeling sad.”

•••••

Churchill plans to attend Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado. She has her future planned much like the rounds in a wrestling match.

“I feel like just wrestling helped me be like that,” she said. “Have a plan straight out because in matches too you think about what’s the next move you’re going to do…I feel like that has helped me in my life outside of wrestling. I just want to make sure I always have a plan and have a backup plan as well…I feel like my college plan is pretty solidified and that is exactly what I want to do and I’ve put a lot of research into it….Hopefully after I get my degree I can come back and coach the middle school. But I am going to major in business administration, get my degree, come back to Wrangell, work at the hospital and while I’m working at the hospital take online classes to get my master’s and hopefully work my way up to hospital administration.”

“I’m just really excited for my future when I get to live in Wrangell and work and just kind of start my own family and start my own life. Have my own house. I’ll have a mat in the backyard or the basement for sure. Once I have kids, which is not going to be for a while, but once I do they will definitely be wrestlers.”

Life has challenged Della Churchill under the biggest spotlight.

It has thrown her to the mat time after time, and maybe a loss or two have been felt and will still leave bruises, but Della Churchill was guaranteed success from the first moment her father and mother set her on the wrestling mats at age five.

“If you are going through something really hard and don’t think you can get out of it, try and find an outlet that will help you focus on other things and make you want to do better,” Churchill said. “Like mine was wrestling. Wrestling helped me get out of a really bad spot. Just focusing on wrestling and all the things about wrestling helped me not focus on all the bad things that were going on…I have learned so much more from my losses than my wins, but it’s definitely way more fun to win.”

• Contact Klas Stolpe at klas.stolpe@juneauempire.com.