The online voice of cambridge campus students
 
by Kirsten Ellison

Contributing writer




“I think the most interesting thing about me is what I have overcome in life,” said Michael Relitz, a student from Anoka-Ramsey Community College (ARCC).  

After getting involved in alcohol and drugs, Relitz went into rehab and has been sober for over two years and is currently maintaining a 3.9 grade point average in college. Relitz said, “I have learned a lot from my past mistakes and it has made me a better person.” 

At the age of 24, Relitz met his wife Catherine and married her six months later. Shortly after they met, his wife joined the Army and they then spent their first four and a half months where she was stationed, in Campbell, Ken.  His wife was deployed twice during that time and during her second deployment, lasting 15 months, he moved back to Minnesota and then enrolled at ARCC. 

When asked whom his heroes are Relitz responded, “My number one hero is my wife. She is a strong woman who served proudly in the United States Army and became a Sergeant.” Relitz enjoys spending time with his wife.  Their hobbies include camping in the summer, fishing and watching T.V.  He also enjoys playing poker and golfing. 

At one point in his life, Relitz didn’t have any goals, but now he has big dreams and is determined to achieve them. “My biggest dream in life is to start a family with my wife, get a good job and raise my kids to be the best that they can be,” he said.  He also aspires to someday create a television series.  “I have a lot of great ideas that I can hopefully someday bring to life, and bring people out there in T.V. land some enjoyment,” Relitz stated.  



 
by Josh Gloe

Contributing writer




With every bump in the road, pain shot through the leg of a young John Loomis. He had yet again broken his leg, this time in the middle of a Cub Scouts meeting. Although it was one out of many times he had to deal with a broken bone, that did not dull the pain.

Loomis, now 18 years old, and an Anoka-Ramsey Community College student, was born with brittle bones, technically known as osteogenesis imperfecta. The student estimates that he has broken a bone around 50 times in his life. He has undergone much pain, suffering, surgical treatments, and hospital time.

Through such hardship in his life, Loomis’ faith carries him through the good times and the bad, and he has developed a love for music. He explained that he continues to develop his passion in his faith and in his music, and it helps fuel him when times are tough, as well as when life is not as difficult.

Loomis is literally one in a million. Only one out of every million people diagnosed with osteogenesis imperfecta do not receive it genetically. Loomis is one of the extremely rare cases in that he did not inherit his brittle bones from family members.

Throughout his life, Loomis has had countless surgeries and medical procedures to suffer through, aside from the pain of breaking bones. In one notable case, in January of 2007, he had a major surgery on his back.

“I had extreme scoliosis,” he said, “and I had to have my vertebrae fused together.” After a lengthy amount of time spending all day in his bed for week after week, and after a slow recovery, Loomis’ back is essentially immobile. “Now I can’t bend my back,” he said.

Loomis said he kept track of those last few moments before surgery, because he knew he would be limited after the procedure. In reference to the morning of the surgery, he said, “I got to crack my back for the last time at 7 a.m. that day.”

A couple of years later, in September of 2009, Loomis had an external fixator inserted into his leg through what he described as a very painful surgical process. This was done in hopes of extending the length of one of his legs, as one was shorter than the other.

“I had five osteotomies,” he explained, “and the external fixator was on my femur. I had to daily use screws and bolts to lengthen it.” This was, he explained, yet another severely painful process. Loomis ended up having to stay almost completely immobile in his bed for several more months, until December of 2009.

Not three months later, in March of 2010, Loomis began feeling severe abdominal pain. “At first,” he said, “I thought that I had the flu. Well, after not eating for five days and being in quite a bit of pain - and that’s saying much for me - I told mom that I thought I was going to die one night. She said, ‘Well, I guess we should take you into the emergency room.’”

“Well, they poked and prodded, and finally, after about five hours, found the problem. I had burst my appendix, and it had been burst for three days. The doctor said that I would have died that night if we had not come in.”

Throughout all of this, the suffering, the near death experience, and the reasons to want to give up hope, Loomis has held his head high and grasped a higher power. His religious faith has given him hope and strength to carry on. “It is the most important part of my life,” he said.

By writing and performing music for the Catholic Marian group Schoenstatt (German for “beautiful place”), which is a global organization with several groups located in Minnesota, he combines his spirituality with his love for music.

Loomis has been playing piano for 10 years, cello for eight years, guitar for two years, and the drums for two years.

Throughout his times of hardship and troubles, pain and suffering, music was always a big part of his life. If he couldn’t physically play an instrument, he would be listening to it or singing it from his bed during his times of recovery.

Now on the rebound, Loomis is planning on working towards his Associates in Fine Arts degree in the area of music at Anoka-Ramsey Community College. He plans on using this to further his love of music, God, and the people around him.



 
by Michel Relitz

Contributing writer




Game on! Anoka-Ramsey Community College student Rachel Kempen is tired of the same old mistakes in video games. That’s why she’s setting her controls for auto-pilot; destination: game design. 

Kempen has given much thought to what career path to choose and has settled on game design. “The reason behind being a game designer is really simple,” said Kempen. “I enjoy games- everything from Zelda, Mario, Final Fantasy, to World of Warcraft and Doom. Heck, even Tetris can keep me entertained for hours.” 

Kempen spoke about story-lines, graphics, and game play. Beyond her love for the games she sees much room for improvement in the overall design of games. “The way certain areas or encounters are designed, they are just either extremely stupid and you begin to wonder, ‘who the heck thought this was a great idea’, said Kempen, “or other times they are so hard that you find yourself raging at your T.V. or computer.” 

Kempen added that there are times during games when she felt she could do a better job with the design. She said, “I always have these ideas pop into my head about what should have happened, or what they could have done to make an event better.” 

All this and more is what’s driving Kempen towards game design. Looking towards the future Kempen noted that, “It would be amazing to see my own ideas and designs in a popular video game. I could point something out and be like, ‘I designed that’.  Not to mention I’d have a blast having a career in game design.”

 
by Rosalie Young

Journalism student




When Samantha Williams was only 12, she embarked on a journey with her family to Hawaii. Little did her parents know, but they had planted the seed that would sprout and bloom all over the world. She found the traveler spirit in her soul.

At the age of 20, Williams has logged many hours on flights to Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico and Fiji. While most of those hours have been with family, she has also shared them with friends and a travel group called People to People Ambassadors. This program offers educational travel opportunities for students. It can also be a tool whereby college students receive credit for their hands-on study of the history, culture, art, geography, economics and government of the regions where they stay.

Fiji is one of Williams’ favorite destinations. Fiji is comprised of 333 islands. One tiny heart-shaped island is named Tavarua. Owned by a family friend, it is surrounded by turquoise water; offers world-renowned surfing and beaches of white sand.  While in transit on one of her visits, Williams was invited to stay with a mainland family where polygamy was practiced. The family consisted of two wives sharing one husband in a house with two sides, one for one wife and kids and the other side for the other wife and kids. Williams found this situation rather strange, but it was a normal lifestyle for that family.

Williams hopes to continue to enrich her portfolio of foreign destinations with a jaunt across the Atlantic to meet the Queen.



 
by Joe Schmitz

Journalism student




In the age of technology and many opinions, Josh Gloe, a high school student, has the perfect answer.

Gloe created Project:Informed in late December 2009.  It is a discussion forum in which members can chat, talk about or debate any topic they please.  The goal of the site is to get people involved in current issues and for the members to freely discuss their side of the argument.   The forum includes discussions on anything ranging from video games to religion.

“I hope to turn the board into a thriving community to debate and share thoughts,” says the 17-year-old Gloe.  “We have members as young as 13 and as old as 50, so certainly everyone is welcome.”

he forum has a section for general thoughts, as well as an opinion section. The opinion section is moderated by Gloe, so that the debates don’t become offensive or derogatory, making the site safe for young members.

Armed with a new site and goals to attend a four-year university to double-major in mass communications and marketing, Gloe claims he is just scratching the surface of his potential.  He encourages people to check out the site.  

He said, “It has a laid-back and welcoming feeling with plenty of areas for fun, but also a professional and controlled area for members to debate and discuss more serious issues.”

Gloe grew up in St. Francis, Minn. and currently attends school at Anoka-Ramsey Community College.  He also volunteers at the local church and at Feed My Starving Children. 

Gloe hopes his site is the next big hit. It can be found at http://projectinformed.proboards.com/.  

 
By Angela Geinosky

Brittany Olson is a hairstylist, who says that styling hair is one of her passions in life. For the last three years she has been living what she says is her dream job as a hairstylist at Fantastic Sams hair salon in Cambridge, Minn.

Olson recalls the day when she knew she wanted to style hair. At age seven her aunt gave her a “how to braid hair” book   and unleashed little Olson’s passion.  She can still remember the first hair cut she ever gave. “The first haircut I gave was probably on my mom! She was sooooo nervous because she is kind of picky and didn’t know if I had enough experience to give her a cut. It did go well though; she has had the same variation of the haircut for years so I did a good job,” she said.

Of all the skills that Olson learned at the Regency Beauty Institute in Blaine she says tht  at she enjoys creating updos (elegant styled hair) on clients most of all. At Regency, Olson won several updo contests, and even created them for weddings and proms when she was just a senior in high school. 

Although Olson admits she loves her job, she said that she knows that with any job it is easy to get burned out from doing the same thing over and over again, that is why she is currently attending Anoka-Ramsey Community College so she can further her career at her second job, Wells Fargo.  I like to balance it out so that I still go to work and love it along with reflect my passion to the people that are in my chair,” she said. Currently Olson is enjoying her life as a student. She lives with her fiancé Ian, in Isanti and is looking forward to her own wedding, which when it comes to the hair, she said she will be more than ready.


 
By Alyssa Peterson

Twenty-one-year-old Angelina Geinosky, from Warrenville, Ill., has an incredible passion for singing.

“My mom told me that I could sing before I could talk. I don’t know if I was influenced by Disney movies, or it could be my father’s love of music, all I know is that apparently I have been singing my whole life,” Geinosky said.

Her choir director and mentor, Gordon Krauspe, “inspired me to really go out there and do something remarkable with my talent. He helped me discover my true passion of music,” Geinosky said.

Geinosky showed off her talent in several school choirs and even participated in the Midwest Young Artists. “One of the things I have learned over the years about my love of singing,” she said, “is that although I love to sing on my own, I enjoy singing much more when I am singing in a choir.”

Geinosky’s favorite singing part in her choir was the alto. She enjoyed it so much more because she usually got to sing the harmony.

Geinosky concluded the interview with the comment that, “I really enjoy all the hard work and teamwork that comes along with chorale music because it helped me learn restraint and balance in my singing. I just love how people are blessed with the gift of song, and I think it's amazing that, when trained, I can use my voice the same way a person uses any other kind of instrument. Plus- it makes me happy.”