| What is your favorite gym unit to teach? | Either our new unit, disc golf, or pickleball. Pickleball being the most fun because I can actually play it with the students. |
| Do you have any hobbies? | I love to golf. I could golf every day of the week if I was able to. |
| Did you have any other serious jobs before teaching? | No, everything was part time while I was in school getting my masters. |
| What was your favorite subject in school? | Either history or science, specifically biology. |
| Has anyone had a really big impact on your life? | My Dad, he’s helped me become who I am today. He’s always shown me how to be a man of faith and really have my family be very important to me. My faith and my family are everything to me. |
Mr. Ames has been a teacher at NAHS for six years. He got his Bachelor’s degree in Biology, and currently teaches Physical Education and Health. In addition to teaching, he coaches both basketball and football. Last but not least, he is the advisor the the NAHS Leo Club. Despite being very involved around the school, not many people know about where he grew up. That will change when people read this tale he shared:
“I grew up in West Africa, the Ivory Coast, for the first 15 years of my life. It wasn’t as third world as you’d think, but it was definitely third world. Being in West Africa, there were a lot of big tropical rainstorms, so when it rained, it really rained. Because of that the houses would flood sometimes. The water would start coming up from the toilets, the showers, and any other drains.
“When I was in sixth grade, my parents woke me up and said we had to start bailing water, because the whole house was flooded. So I was in the kitchen, throwing water out the windows and the door, and all of a sudden I turned around and saw my brother laying on the ground having a seizure. This was his first seizure so we didn’t really know what we had to do. So we ended up wanting to take him to the hospital. My mom and I got in the car to go to the hospital at about 3:00 in the morning, while my dad stayed behind to try to get the house under control.
“We were driving to the hospital, and about halfway there the road was flooded, and when I say the road was flooded the water was about up to our windows. So we started driving through it not knowing what was going to happen, and the car ended up stalling out. Water and cars don’t mix that well.
“So now we’re sitting there with my brother my mom and me, and we’re not really sure what to do. So my mother and I said a quick prayer, and all of a sudden these guys came out from nowhere and helped push the car right through the water. They pushed us for about a quarter of a mile and got us up onto dry land, but the car still wouldn’t start.
“We weren’t really sure what we were gonna do so we continued to pray and all of a sudden a big trash truck came diving down the road. I don’t know why, since it was 3:00 in the morning. The driver saw us, stopped, and said he’d give us a ride. So, we jumped up into the trash truck, and he drove us to the hospital. The garbage man ended up carrying my brother all the way up to the emergency room while my mother and I walked in with him. Everything was fine, but it was definitely an interesting time getting to the hospital.”
The First Launch 