To my surprise, there are many former students now teachers here at CHS. One of them being Jeff Stanek, now retired, who I conveniently interviewed when he came down to the Talon office.

Stanek graduated in 1981. After his experience at CHS in his student years, he decided to make a reappearance and return as a formal eagle, to pursue a career in teaching. According to Stanek, he never would have been offered a job position at the school if he hadn’t coincidentally seen the athletic director in a parking lot one day. After the two conversed, Stanek says he offered him a coaching job on the spot, and the rest is a fast forward into history.

Stanek says his favorite part of the job is the environment. “The environment just kept evolving. People I was hanging out with on weekends were working here with me, and it was just an awful lot of fun. It was a very different atmosphere 30 years ago than it is now.” In terms of change, Stanek says that there were many other elective courses offered here when he was a student. For instance, Auto Repair, Small Gas Engines, and farming type classes. His favorite class as a student was the Newspaper class, he says it was a great place to be for writing stories covering sports. In his high school years, Stanek did it all. From sports, to the newspaper, and yearbook. He enjoyed coaching activities and teaching Yearbook, Beginning Journalism the most. But he also taught career classes and did school administration/coordination in his last few years.

Stanek just recently retired, however comes back to the school once a week. His advice to the younger generation, and current students is, “Find something that makes you want to come to school, because you really want to be here vs. having to take Math/English tests, go to boring core classes, and not having anything to look forward to. Just find something that makes you want to get out of bed and go to school so you can come here.” I really took these words to heart, as I too also enjoy the Newspaper class. It’s one of my favorite classes, and I look forward to writing/covering stories, and having fun with creative freedom. It almost gives me a sense of pride that I go out and work not only as a student but also as a member of the Talon.