One teacher in particular that stands out as one of my favorites is none other than Scott Smith. From the beginning of my Free State career I remember him helping lead the Link crew games, in which two strangers have to hug a balloon till it pops. After that one-of-a-kind experience, I took all of Mr. Smith’s film classes, and that was one of the best decisions of my life. When I made it into Firebird Productions I was put on the 2013 Homecoming video crew. My partner in crime Jacob Hood and I created one of the most praised Homecoming videos with the theme of reality television. Mr. Smith’s classes provided an eyeopening experience in which my passion for film became the path I want to pursue in college.

The teacher that balances humor perfectly with learning has to be Lynne Renick. Her American Literature class not only fulfilled my expectations but made the  learning environment less stressful and more fun. We tackled some initially intimidating assignments, such as memorizing a poem and reciting it back word for word, but I never gave up and was always pleased with the results. During the dreadful block classes, Renick helped alleviate the pressure by playing trivia games with us. The prizes for correct answers was candy of course, and I was quite the candy earner if I do say so myself.

Sophomore year I took two pretty important classes. Ok, one of them was important in my parents eyes–Banking and Finance–and the other–Web Page Design–was for fun. Anyway, the teacher who taught those classes was none other than Matt Gudenkauf. My first impression of Gudenkauf was “this guy is pretty cool and determined for his students to do a good job.” For the Banking class, he taught us about banking and all of the ups and downs which I thought was quite important and beneficial. To seal the information in our minds we watched some pretty awesome movies like Wall Street and Catch Me If You Can. The movies perfectly covered the material that was taught, and in turn sparked my fascination with Wall Street. In web page design ,we got to design our own website to display all of our interests and hobbies, and we even created cool web games. Mr. Gudenkauf’s classes taught me vital information about banking, and how to express myself properly and efficiently on the web.

Looking back on my years at Free State I am surprised by how fast time flew. And I have no regrets, and am looking forward to my experiences in the film department at KU. Thank you to all of my teachers and I’ll see you around one way or another.