Making a difference: GINW senior plays large part in younger students’ lives

Northwest High School senior Ben Paige lives a varied life.

Even he could not imagined how varied his life would be at one point last school year.

"I was a linebacker Friday night and I was a flower on Saturday morning," Paige said.

The linebacker part came naturally to Paige, a three-sport athlete who also wrestles and runs track in the spring.

The flower, not so much.

Paige said drama teacher Bonnie Brown needed to fill in some parts for the fall production of "The Wizard of Oz," which was then converted into a one-act play for competition.

"She asked if I would be a tree," said Paige, who said the teacher convinced him to help out. After his initial agreement, he said, Brown added, "Hey, we need a flower, too."

The senior freely admits he doesn't know if he would have agreed to be in the play if Brown had first asked him to portray a flower.

"She got me," said Paige, discussing the order in which Brown asked her questions.

The tree and flower parts came with sound effects and no lines.

The experience couldn't have been too bad, though. Paige is back this year to play Romeo's good friend Benvolio in the Northwest production of  "Romeo and Juliet." This year's part has dialogue.

Paige is once again playing football as both a linebacker and running back for the Northwest Vikings. He wrestled last at 145 pounds and qualified for state. Paige said he will wrestle again this winter, but not at 145.

"I cut 25 pounds last year," he explained. Instead, he'll talk with his coach about his weight class before wrestling season begins.

In track, he qualified for state in the 300 meter hurdles and 4-by-4 relay. Paige said he lost any chance for state when he fell in the 110-meter hurdles at districts last year.

"I crashed," he said.

The spill happened on a wet track with a synthetic surface. Paige said it was probably a good thing the track was wet: It kept him from getting more scraped up than he did. He's seen other hurdlers end up with much worse scrapes.

Paige said he was pretty lucky, although he still will get some good-natured ribbing from teammates about his tumble.

While Paige does not want to repeat his 110-meter hurdle experience from last year's district track meet, he has reprised one role from last school year.

He is once again serving as a football big brother or mentor to Cedar Hollow sixth-grader Zach Canfield and to Cedar Hollow fifth-grader Kip Jones.

It is a program introduced to Northwest last year by new Activities Director Rocky Almond, who brought the system with him from Alliance.

Paige was matched with Canfield last year and Jones became part of the program this year.

Kip said he likes Paige as a football big brother because he comes to Cedar Hollow, "he's really nice" and he also comes to school to spend time with him and Zach.

Zach noted that Paige is not only nice to him and Kip, but he's "nice to everybody" at the school. He said Paige also telephones just to see how he's doing.

Cedar Hollow Principal Steve Morris said Paige is an "outstanding example of what a student-athlete should be."

After Almond got the football mentorship program off the ground last year, he asked for volunteers to get it started this year.

 Paige said he and fellow Northwest student Kevin Roehrich did the organizing this year. Part of the job involved driving to the Northwest feeder schools, Cedar Hollow, District 1-R, St. Libory and Chapman to deliver sign-up sheets, then returning a week later to see which students were interested.

The program is voluntary for players as well. Still, about 20 players -- the majority of upperclassmen -- participate. Some, like Paige, have partnered with more than one young student.

Paige said activities typically include having the younger students join the football players for a team meal on Thursday nights. The  shared meal gives players the opportunity to talk with their younger counterparts about a variety of topics.

During games, younger students wear the "away" football jersey of the player they've been matched with. In Paige's case, Zach wears a shirt related to, while Kip gets to wear the actual game jersey.

"He (Zach) had to be the ’big' little brother this year," Paige said.

When halftime rolls around, the younger students applaud the players as they depart for their half-time program. After the game, younger students carry shoulder pads and jerseys for the players.

Last year, Paige and Zach continued their relationship after the football season. After finishing his wrestling match, Paige said, he would go into the stands to talk with Zach and watch the rest of the competition.

"We go out for ice cream sometimes, too," he said.

As a senior, Paige said, he is planning on attending either the University of Nebraska-Lincoln or Kansas State University, with a career goal of becoming an engineer.

"I'm also going to be in the ROTC," said Paige, who noted that while there are several branches of the military he could choose, he definitely knows he wants to be in the Army ROTC.

More on Ben:

SISTER SYDNEY: Sydney Paige is younger than Ben, but in the same grade. That circumstance was brought about by several factors. Paige said his birth put him on the bubble on when to enter kindergarten and his parents delayed. "I was small for my age," he said. Sydney, whom Ben describes as "really smart," was born prematurely. Hence, they've been in the same grade all through school, although in different classrooms when younger. Ben said even being in the same school was hard when he was younger, because Sydney would come home and tell about everything he did in school. Now, he likes being in the same AP calculus class as Sydney because he can ask her for help when he's stuck on a problem.

MAGIC: Oldest brother Jeb Paige is a convenience store manager in Iowa and a part-time magician, while second oldest brother Zach Paige is a college student at the University of Northern Iowa and a part-time magician. Ben said he's close to both, but right now, he's talking every day to Zach, because they've made different choices on who they will get their votes for president. Ben said all political debates have remained friendly, though.

EAGLE SCOUT: Dale Clark asked Ben to take on a restoration project of a 100-yard stretch of the historic Old Lincoln Highway, which is north of the present Highway 30 and south of the UPS location. Ben rounded up volunteers to clean up the trash from the weeds, cut down the weeds on the sides of the pavement, and pull out weeds from the pavement, then spray the surface so no more weeds would grow. Ben's around the area around the pavement five or six times this year and needs to do it once more before winter. His last task will be to find a group to keep the area groomed after he heads off for college.