“I started kickboxing because I wanted to get into a routine of working out. I attend Kickin It in Edgewood, every Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 5:15 to 6. I go with my aunt, and it’s great to have her as my workout buddy! Knowing that I’ve already accomplished so much early on in the morning and have my workout in is a great feeling! The ladies that lead the class are very welcoming! They ...

“Ever since I was little, I traced over my mother’s tattoos. I was like, this is fun. “While I can’t legally have a tattoo gun, I use this thing called InkBox. The ink goes on and feels like a tattoo. It will develop in 24 hours and stay for a month. While the kit comes with stencils, I don’t like to use them. I prefer to design my own tattoos. Soon I’ll actually be designing my mother�...

“My family has been going to Colorado since I was young, and my dad hiked Longs Peak, a 14er (14,000 foot mountain). That made me really want to try it too! The joy of setting a goal and accomplishing it, spending time with my dad, which is priceless, and also striving to do things that are hard but never giving up and seeing the reward in the end are some of my favorite joys from this experience. I lo...

“I started volleyball around the age of eight. I have such a passion for the sport, and that’s why I recently joined a team in Dubuque. I enjoy getting to know guys around my age who have the same passion. I am most passionate about how I do the sport and representing the people who have supported me. It took a lot of work and time to get where I am now, and I couldn’t have done it without my support...

“I have been volunteering at Castle Theater for three years now. I usually volunteer four or five days a week. It’s fun! I like meeting new people. It has helped me break out of my shell. Only four people get paid. If it wasn’t for me and the rest of the volunteers, there would not be a movie theater in Manchester.”

“My dad used to race late model cars. He asked me if I wanted to race go carts, but they didn’t intrigue me because they just drove around in circles. I then showed him people racing motorcycles on TV. My dad knew that I wanted to race those instead. That year for Christmas my dad bought me a dirt bike and since then that’s all I have done. It’s an adrenaline rush. It’s fun. It’s what m...

"I had a disease that was called Severe Aplastic Anemia. It was a disease that shut down my Immune System and basically disintegrated all of my blood cells. I had two to three months to live without a bone marrow transplant because you can’t live without an immune system. They labeled it as a rare type of  leukemia and treated me like it was leukemia, but it actually wasn’t cancer. It was a very ...