RUMFORD – When Josh Merrill discovered at age 9 that he was good at gymnastics, he decided to stick with it through middle and high school.

But it hasn’t been easy, said the 17-year-old National Honor Society and Civil Rights Team member and top-10 senior at Mountain Valley High School.

After his first competitive meet nearly 10 years ago with the Greater Rumford Community Center team, he quit briefly because of the taunting he got from other boys. But he said he thought it over and decided he really liked gymnastics and was good at it. He would continue, he said, even if he was one of only two or three other boys who enjoyed the challenge of successfully doing routines.

“I wasn’t going to let them drive me out,” he said.

As he grew older, he said, he was often the only boy taking part in gymnastics, whether as a member of the now-defunct MVHS gymnastics team or at the community center.

The ridicule has stayed with him throughout his sports career, he said, but now when someone questions his sexuality because he is a gymnast, he tells them, “I am in a gym with a bunch of women, and you are in a locker room with a bunch of guys.”

Over the years, he has worked up from Level 2 to Level 8. Level 10 is the highest.

All along, his mother and stepfather, Kevin and Marcey Sweetser, and his father, Rick, have supported his gymnastics interest, he said.

It was an uncle, Kenny Jodrey, a coach for the Old Town gymnastics team, who got Josh interested in the sport.

“I found I was flexible and able to do a lot of things, and I didn’t need to be spotted when I did a back handspring,” he said.

Because of this natural ability, he was at the starting level at the community center for only a very short time before he was allowed to jump right to Level 4.

During last weekend’s statewide gymnastic meet, at which he was the only male participant among 253 athletes, he placed second only to Maddie Dunakin, a member of the Old Town team that his uncle helps coach.

His gymnastics days, however, may be over.

He said he plans to begin work on a four-year degree in nursing in the fall at the University of New England in Westbrook.

He could continue to take lessons at the Greater Rumford Community Center, or even take part in a gymnastics team at the college, but he said he wants to make sure he does well in his studies.

“I want to work in an operating room. In the CNA course at Region 9, I’ve been able to watch surgeries. I love the human body. It is so complex,” he said.

Then he hopes to get a job in a big-city hospital.

For now, though, with gymnastics about done, he said he knows he must find another way to get his exercise.

Putting up with the ridicule has taught him many life lessons, he said.

“I learned how to put up with those who have low tolerance and those who have a (narrow) view of what a male should do,” he said.

And he would recommend the sport to any young man who wants to try it.

“As long as they can put up with the ridicule,” he said.

His girlfriend, Katie Blais of Dixfield, said she thinks Josh’s favorite sport makes him special.

“Gymnastics makes him unique,” she said.