We take pride in our staff, and now we get to know them with their “last ten.”

What was the last restaurant you visited? “Probably Taco Bell.”

• Did you go there with anyone? “No, I was by myself. I just went through the drive through.”
• What did you get? “A quesadilla.”
• Is that what you usually get? “No, I usually switch it up.”
• What else do you like to get? “Cheesy Gordita Crunches are good. Really you can’t wrong at Taco Bell, though. Those new Quesaritos are pretty good. They’ve got good nachos. That’s pretty much it.”
• Do you like any of their drinks? “Yeah their frozen drinks are really good.” They’ve got that new Vanilla Dr. Pepper float, they’ve got the Baha Blast float. Those are all really good.”

What was the last TV show or movie you watched? “’Big Brother.’”

• Are you a big fan? “Yeah, I’m a huge fan.”
• How many seasons have you watched? “I think they’re on their 16th season this year. I’ve probably watched it the past three or four seasons.”
• How did you first get into watching “Big Brother?” “My college roommate always watched it so it was on the TV. So if I was hanging out with him, I would watch it with him. It was a pretty good show. I’m usually not a big reality TV fan, but that one’s pretty good.”
• Where did you go to college at? “I went to Mizzou.”
• How did you meet your roommate? “We had mutual friends. Somebody that I was friends in high school with was friends with him. He went to Marquette, and I went to Rockwood Summit High School, so we were kind of from the same area.”
• Did you play any sports in high school? “Yeah, I played golf and basketball, and I was in marching band, too.”
• What instrument did you play? “I played trombone.”
• How long did you play the trombone for? “I just did if from when I was in sixth grade to when I was a senior in high school. Actually, I played a little bit last year for the Jennings band. They only had like 15-20 kids in the whole band, so I went up there sometimes and played some trombone with them. It was fun.”

What was the last thing you ate? “I just ate yogurt at lunch. It was caramel flavored.”

• They have that? “Yeah. It was Greek yogurt. It was pretty good!”
• Did it have caramel in the bottom? “No, it wasn’t one of those with the fruits on the bottom. It was just all mixed in.”
• Do you like the fruit in the bottom kind? “Yeah, they’re pretty good. You just have to do the extra work and mix it all up.”
• Do you always get caramel? “No, I like to switch those up, too. Strawberry Cheesecake ones are really good. Strawberry Banana ones are pretty good.”

What was the last thing that you did at your former job? “I was a teacher over at Jennings so… I probably turned my keys in.”

• Where is Jennings at? “It’s in North St. Louis. Just a few miles away from Ferguson.”
• What did you teach there? “I taught Algebra I.”
• Is that what you’re teaching here as well? “I teach Geometry and Algebra II here.”
• How long were you at Jennings? “Just one year.”
• Was that your first year teaching? “My first year actually was two years ago here at EHS. I was part time, and then Jennings offered me a full time contract. I was there for the full year, and then EHS called me back at the end of the year and asked me to come back.

Who was the last person that you shared a phone call with? “Probably Mrs. [Lauren] Schoellhorn. She’s the varsity golf coach, and I’m the JV golf coach. I had a match at a different place than she did yesterday, so I called her to let her know what was going on since it was raining and stuff.”

• How long have you been coaching for? “This is my first year!”
• How long have you been into golf? “I played since I was in high school. So probably like eight years.”

 Who was the last person you hugged? “My girlfriend.”

• How long have you been together? “Two and a half years.”
• How did you meet? “We met at a mutual friend’s house. It was my brother’s roommate. He was having people over at his place. He just got a new place, and he just had a few friends over. I knew him through my brother and my girlfriend Holly knew my brother’s roommate’s girlfriend, so she was invited over from her, and I was there, and that’s how we met.”
• How did you start dating? “It was probably facebook’s fault. She added me as a friend on facebook, and then I accepted it. Then we kind of started talking on there, and then we just got to know each other more.”

What is the last store you went to? “Walmart? No, maybe Target. Yeah, Target.”

• What brought you to Target? “Groceries.”
• Do you usually go there for grocery shopping? “Either Target or Walmart. About half the time I go to Target.”
• Do you have a preference between the two? “I’d say Target is my preferred place to go.”
• Why is that? “They just have a better selection.”

What was the last soda you drank? “Mountain Dew.”

• Is that your favorite? “Yeah, usually.”
• Do you have any other favorites? “Gatorade. Gatorade is pretty good. I like the G2, like the low calorie. It tastes like flavored water. I like purple, blue, orange. They’re all pretty good.

 What was the last out-of-state place you visited? “Probably Illinois. We go up there a lot.”

• Do you have family there? “Both of my parents are from Illinois. And my dad has seven brothers and sisters, and my mom has two brothers and sisters and all of the rest of them are all still up in Illinois. We go up there for Thanksgiving, Christmas, randomly over the summer, 4th of July, whenever.”
• You said you went to high school here, did you grow up in Illinois? “No, both of my parents graduated from the University of Illinois. Then they moved here to St. Louis when my dad got a job here so I was born in the St. Louis area. I was born in Fenton… Well I was born in a hospital, but then we lived in Fenton.”
• So are you and your family very close? “Yeah, it’s surprising that my dad has seven brothers and sisters, and we still all get together and see just about every one of them on all of the holidays and stuff.”
• Do you have any favorite memories from spending time with your family?  “My grandpa owns his own painting/contracting business so over the summers when I was in college I would go up to Illinois, live with him and work for him all summer long. He paid a lot better than working some fast food and retail jobs, so I enjoyed making some decent money over the summer so I could survive the school year with during college.”
• Did you do that every year when you were in college? “I did it when I was a freshman in college. I think the next year he was real slow on work and didn’t need extra people, and then I did it when I was a junior and senior in college, also.”
• What kind of work did you do? “We kind of did something different every year. When I was a freshman he had bid a job to paint a bunch of apartment complexes on a college campus up in Illinois, so we were going through all of their apartment living dorms and stuff like that: patching holes in walls, and re-painting closets, and re-painting hallways and bedrooms and everything there. The summer before my junior and senior year he was power washing conveyor belts at a seed factory. We were power washing them, putting some sort of primer on there and then repainting them so it would seal up better. We painted a bunch of ceilings that year, too. He just did a bunch of stuff. Whatever he could bid for people that needed work done. If he won the bid, then that’s what he went and did.”
• Did you like doing that? “Yeah, I liked it more than working part time. I knew my hours were set. Every day I would wake up at 5 a.m. and go work until 4 p.m. It wasn’t any night times or weekend, so that was kind of a good thing that you don’t get from most retail places or fast food. So I enjoyed that part of it, yeah.”
• Was there any part that you disliked? “It was hard. I would shower like twice a day because I couldn’t eat dinner without taking a shower first. I would have paint and dirt all over me, and then when I would wake up in the morning I would shower again. It was definitely a tough job. It was a hands-on, you-worked-all-day-long kind of job, not like a you-sit-behind-the-cash-register-and-work-only-when-the-store’s-busy type of job. That was the tough part of it, but the money made it worth it.”

Who was the last person that you communicated with over social media? “I think one of my uncles. It was his birthday, and I told him happy birthday on facebook.”

• How old is he? “Forty-seven. That’s about how old he is. I don’t know. facebook just told me it was his birthday so I believed it!”
• So you don’t mark family’s birthdays in the calendar? “No, I’m not organized enough to do that.”
• Why are you not organized enough? “I have a pretty good memory, so I memorize a lot of birthdays. Today is my best friend/collage roommate’s birthday. I just know that off the top of my head. I didn’t even have to look at facebook for that one. Next October 19 is my other college roommate’s birthday. I’ve got all my brothers and sisters’ birthdays memorized, my mom and my dad’s, my girlfriend’s. That’s an important one! So I’ve got a pretty good memory that I don’t need to write a whole lot of things down. I’ve been able to get by with that so far.”
• Is there any specific thing that you’re really unorganized about? “You won’t be able to pick it up on the recording, but I’m sure you can see my desk right now is not very orderly, but I know where everything is. I’m kind of one of those people where I just have stacks and piles of things where I know where everything is. But I’m just generally not a color-coded type of person.”