Incoming Knight: Impressive Pianist

Joey Recker, son of Alum Dr. Bob Recker '84 and brother of Jake '13 was recently feature in an article from the Omaha World Herald.  Joey is a member of the incoming class of 2018. 

Mesmerizing teen pianst very humble and sees future in music
By Janice Gilmore / World-Herald correspondent

At first glance, Joey Recker, a 14-year-old eighth-grader at St. Mary Margaret School, appears to be a typical, involved young man. His favorite sport is basketball, and he plays baseball. He competes in speech and plays the guitar and piano.

My impression of him as he walked to the piano at a recent recital was that he seemed an amiable young man.

Then he played.   

Read entire article in the Omaha World Herald

Artomobiles: Jin Seo Kim Sketches the Future

Young-Joon Park | Features Editor

Kim has used 43 ball point pens for his designs since the
start of the Year. (photo by Kevin Jewell)

  There are sketches everywhere. Coupes on his desk, SUVs on his shelves, sports cars in his bag, sedans on his computer and even buses on sporadic pages of his assignment notebook. Junior Jin Seo Kim aspires to be car design’s next top star.

   To his classmates, Kim is an oddball out of the junior class. Like a tonic of a little cynicism, fashion, wit, and bursts of craziness, none of the juniors can say that they never enjoyed his company. But above all, his love for car design sticks out. “It started with hot wheels.” Kim said. “and maybe the Audi toddler car I had when I was six.” For the fledgling designer, it did not take long to realize his goal. Ever since, Kim has drawn cars every single day for three years.

   With years of car design under his belt, he boggles onlookers with his ease when drawing intricate side views and detailed ¾ views of his latest vehicle. “I draw about four or five views of twenty different cars a day.” Kim remarked while flipping through his pile of sketches on his desk. “I pick out a few good designs and scan them into my computer to add some color and texture with Photoshop.”

   Kim’s design process is far from simple. “It starts with thinking of the need of the person. You select a lifestyle and the image of the person and try to follow it throughout his day. If you continue to follow this image, you can visualize the type of car he needs.” Only after this does the creative process come in.

   Kim looks for inspiration from artwork, nature, architecture, and everything else in the world to find the perfect design. Once his theme is set, he begins drawing, starting with the side view of the automobile and working his way around the vehicle. “The whole process involves a lot of failures until you find that harmonized and artistic design you want.” Kim said.

Kim churns out sketches like the one above in a matter of minutes.
(Photo by Mickey Coughlin)

   This March, after (literally) repeating this process about 10,000 times, Kim completed his college portfolio for his dream school - Art Center College of Design at Pasadena, in California. All this he accomplished by himself without any help from the school administration. “For students going into the arts, portfolios are extremely important, so it was a disappointment that the Mount doesn’t have a solid system to support art students.” To make up for the shortcoming, Kim attended art classes on car designing in Korea over the summer. The teachers there helped Kim set conceptual ideas on the themes of his portfolio and wrote him a letter of recommendation to attach to his application.

   Though his forte is the arts, Kim never slacks when it comes to school work. He brushes off his good grades as “pure luck”, but his close peers say otherwise. “It’s not luck. It’s diligence.” Junior David Choi said. “I take a lot of classes with him this year, and he always has his homework finished days before the due date. He’s always the first one to finish.” As to prove this statement, Kim has gotten straight As ever since his freshman year -- and in style as well.

   Kim stands at the vanguard of fashion at the Mount, with his gaudy Thom Browne shirts and modern Dsquared Jeans (they are American and Italian design houses by the way).  “I believe the Mount is at least thirty years behind in fashion. Work needs to be put in there.” Kim remarked with a hint of irritation. “I hate it when people wear plain white socks with dress pants. It just annoys me. And guess what I always see at the Mount.”

   Nonetheless, Kim is bound for a career in car design after graduation and is already visualizing where he wants to be in twenty years. “There are a lot of wonderful car makers out there, but a personal goal of mine is working for Volkswagen. Head Designer might be a little far-fetched, but I am going to try anyways.”

2014 NATIONAL SPANISH EXAM NATIONAL PERCENTILE RESULTS BRONZE – 75% - 84% SILVER – 85% - 94% GOLD – 95% - 100% BRONZE Henry O'Callaghan Nick Carson Alec Gregerson Daniel Woodward Broden Kaps Patrick Halpin Corbin Merkel-Evans Thomas D'Aquila Elliott Heineman Christian Keller Joseph Budd Randall Esquivel Thomas Farhart Andrew Ernst Thomas Wooten Zachrey Starman Sung Han Yoon Jin Kim Eun Woo Jee Mohamad Elradi Michael Steier Zach Frevert Marcus Cronin Alexander Hynes	SILVER Alexander Earsley Zachary Cairney Reilly Jackson Nicholas Huetter Michael Ecker Peyton Hottovy Luke Mixan Benjamin Hynes Sam Bohart Matthew Coghill Dylan Johnson Luke Krajewski Colin Svoboda Mason Lewis Sam Van Haute Alex Stoupa Lucas Tucker Cameron Bretsen Jared Mikuls Elliott Fay Cameron Engel Andrew Johannes GOLD Benedict Murray Andrew Ahn Logan Baumberger Tyler Degener Elijah Buckhold Jackson Thompson Brendan Nicholas Young-Joon Park Harrison Hohman David Choi Thomas Kalil
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2014 NATIONAL SPANISH EXAM NEBRASKA RESULTS Medals for 1st – 5th place in Nebraska:
LEVEL 1 (358 students) 1st Ben Murray 4th Alex Earsley 10th Zachary Cairney 13th Reilly Jackson 14th Luke Mixan 20th Nicholas Huetter
LEVEL 2 (344 students) REGULAR 1st Logan Baumberger 3rd Tyler Degener 4th Elijah Buckhold 6th Jackson Thompson 8th Andrew Ahn 9th Brendan Nicholas 11th Ben Hynes 13th Sam Bohart 17th Matt Coghill 18th Dylan Johnson 19th Luke Krajewski	LEVEL 2 EXPERIENCED 3rd Randall Esquivel 7th Alex Stoupa 8th Sam Van Haute 9th Elliott Heineman 10th Christian Keller 13th Joe Budd 16th Jack Hitzemann 17th Nathan Hazard 18th Jacob Bova 20th Paul Forget
LEVEL 3 (165 students) REGULAR 2nd Young Joon Park 3rd Harrison Hohman 5th David Choi 9th Luke Tucker 11th Cameron Bretsen 15th Jared Mikuls 20th Elliott Fay	LEVEL 3 EXPERIENCED 2nd Marcus Cronin 3rd Zach Frevert 5th Gus deMayo 6th Logan Larson 9th Zachary McBride 11th John Gutsmiedl 13th Stefano Tarantolo 14th Anthony Taylor 20th Chase Goddard
LEVEL 4 (95 students) REGULAR 4th Cameron Engel 8th Andrew Johannes 19th Alex Hynes	LEVEL 4 EXPERIENCED 1st Thomas Kalil

Knights Receive Honors at SAME Competition

Under the guidance of instructor Marilyn Theis and engineering advisors from local business,  The Knights' drafting students year long projects won numerous medals at the Annual Society of American Military Engineers (SAME) competition. There were a total of 18 teams from Bennington, Prep, Gross, Millard West, Mount Michael, Central, North, Papillion-La Vista, Papillion-La Vista South, Skutt, and Westside.

Junior Team 3 Medals
 Two silver medals in applied sciences & innovation and a gold medal for research.

The Junior Project involved working  with the Henry Doorly Zoo to help design/plan a future project they have for a Conservation Academy that would have a 9-12 high school and a Pre-K and Kindergarten classes as well.  The purpose of the facility would be to educated those attending the zoo, the Omaha area community and the next generation in conserving our natural resources.

The Junior Team consisted of Reed Tiwald, Luke Tucker, Cameron Bretsen, Jake Batenhorst, Eric Sullivan, Logan Kalkowski, Andy Ernst, Fred Guernsey, Ashton Legenza, Zach McBride, Elliott Fay, Chris Riddle, and Oliver Jarosik.

Senior Team 6 Medals & Award of Distinction
Four silver medals for applied sciences, technology, sustainability, proposal.  Two gold medals for team work and presentation. The Award of Distinction included a $500 prize which will be used for upgrades to the Mount Michael drafting program. Only five Awards of Distinction were given at the competition.

The senior project was with HETRA Heartland Equine Therapy Riding Aacdemy.  They work with handicapped children and adults by using horse back riding and carriage driving improving their quality of life.  HETRA currently works out of 2 rented facilities.  The Team found a new site and designed a new larger facility that would combine the two current facilities.

The Senior Team consisted of Ben Connealy, Austin Ramaeker, Andrew Carpenter, Chris Bierman, Elijah Buckhold, Rowan Gruber, Garrison Emsick, John Mikulicz, Dan Pavlik, and Giffin Willer.

Knights’ Recognize & Honor a Year of Accomplishments

Garrison Emsick, Jon Borer, Preston Hendricks

The Mount Michael Community gathered in the “Palace” to celebrate and honor the great accomplishments of the 2013-2014 school year.  Awards in Math, Science, Language Arts and many others were presented.

The Activities Director Jon Borer presented the  first major honor, the Athlete of the Year Award  to 2 individuals this year, Garrison Emsick & Preston Hendricks.

Rowan Gruber with Dr. Peters

This year the Hugh O'Brien Youth Leadership Award went to Sophomore Max deMayo  and the Omaha Exchange Club/Sophomore of the year award went to Luke Krajewski.

To the delight of the assembly the Journalism & Academic Decathlon teams also revealed their Championship Banners to be hung in the Palace.

The awards wrapped up with the prestigious Mount Michael Award presented by the faculty, which is given to the senior who most epitomizes the ideals & characteristics of a Mount Michael Student. This year’s award winner was Rowan Gruber. 

More Photos

Max deMayo                           Luke Krajewski

State Championship Banners