I threw the discus, but never placed. I was on the JV football team, but only as a tackling dummy for the linebackers. I ultimately found my niche on the North stage. I was a prince who had to wear lavender leotards, was once in a musical that had me “sing” one line intentionally off-key, and once as the grandfather to a truly ‘bad seed.’ I loved the rigor as much as the casts and crews, and made many friends from Troupe 413 who are still friends to this day. “What is it that we’re living for? Applause, applause….”
As in life, high school gave me moments of peak joy and desperate sorrow. Nothing shook me to my core more than getting a phone call from Celeste Hood just days before our graduation to learn that my best friend from 3rd grade had broken his neck in a diving accident. Once a prolific, record-setting runner with a physique Adonis would envy, John Nunnink would be forced to sit down and adapt to a completely different lifestyle. His cousin, Pam Schleicher and I, demanded that his American Government teacher give him a passing grade so he could get his diploma, which I proudly accepted at our graduation while he lay motionless on a rotating bed at KU Med. John told me on our last trip to the lake that he had never been happier with his life than he was at that moment.