Kurt Wagner

My name is Kurt Joseph Paul Wagner. I was born Feb. 19, 1987, at my family's old residence on Rose Circle in Park Hills.
I am the youngest child in my family with four older sisters and two older brothers. I have resided in Ft. Mitchell since the age of one and have attended Beechwood School since kindergarten and I am now a freshman.

• I enjoy reading fantasy books, and recommend The Wheel of Time, and Sword of Truth series.
• My favorite foods are chicken and carrot cake.
• My favorite color is green.
• I also like to write stories.
• I do not like my science class.
• I dislike discourteous people.

Unique experiences:

          When I was in Florida swimming in the Gulf of Mexico, I was attacked by jellyfish. I had sting marks from their tentacles and even pulled some off of myself. I did not return to the water for the rest of the day and now I am slightly afraid of the ocean.

          When I was in the first grade my house caught on fire. My sister, as a practical joke, got Puff, my cat, high off catnip and locked him in my brother's room. When Puff was trying to get on the top bunk bed he knocked a lamp onto a bed. My mother, who was working in the garden, saw the smoke coming out of my brother's window, and thinking it was him smoking she went up to yell at him. When she opened the door, Puff ran out of the room and the smoke rolled out behind him. My Mother came running down stairs telling me (I was watching T.V.) that the house was on fire. I didn't want to leave since one of my favorite shows was on, and she also yelled at my brother who was in the basement on the computer. After the firefighters put out the fire and surveyed the damage, they told us if they had been ten minutes slower the roof would have fallen in. We were forced to live in hotels for a couple months while our house was being repaired. All our clothes were  treated for smoke damage, and some, like my sisters' baptismal dresses, were never returned from the cleaners.

          In the third grade I went shopping with my father at Sam's. While we were in the frozen food section, I noticed an open freezer had a metal bar in it. So I licked my finger and stuck it to the metal bar and it didn't stick. So I licked it again and stuck it to the bar and pulled it off again. So I put my thumb in my mouth and then pressed it against the bar and when I tried to pull it away it was stuck. Trying desperately to pull it off I said to my dad, "My thumb is stuck to the freezer." and he laughed and walked away. At this time I broke down and started to cry. After five minutes, my dad came back once he noticed I was gone. He tried to pull my finger off but it remained firmly stuck to the metal bar. My dad then went to find some water to put on my hand in hopes of warming the saliva so my finger could get free. He returned with his mouth full of water and he spewed it on my thumb and tried to pull it off, but it remained stuck to the bar. At this time, he decided that he should find the manager. He started to walk away and I pulled with all the strength I had and managed to pull my thumb off the bar. We then proceeded to finish shopping with my thumb in my armpit to keep it warm. When we got home and told my brothers what happened they started to make fun of me. When I went to bed that night my thumb started to hurt like the devil. I got up and walked down the hall to my parents' room and told them my thumb hurt. My mother told me to go back to bed for five minutes and if it still hurt, and couldn't go to sleep, to come back and my father would take me to the hospital. After sitting in bed for five minutes I went back down the hall to their room and my mother told me to go get dressed and my father would take me to the hospital. The hardest thing ever is to tie your tennis shoes without using your thumb. Once at the hospital we sat in the waiting room for what seemed like hours, and the only way I could measure time was by the passing of "I Love Lucy" shows on the T.V. in the waiting room. After a couple episodes, a doctor came out and took my blood pressure and I went back to the waiting room for a few more "I Love Lucy" episodes (now I hate the show). I was taken into another room and separated from a man who was injured in a car accident and was most likely drunk. When the doctor finally came and saw me, he bandaged my thumb so it  stuck sticking up and gave me painkillers. That is how I got severe frostbite in May.

          In the fifth grade during recess, I broke my ankle playing soccer. I thought it was sprained, so I remained in the elementary office until recess was over.  I hopped to my next class since I could not walk on my ankle. After that class was over, the hopping caused painful jolting so I got down on all fours and crawled past the feet of my science teacher, who didn't say anything. On the way to lunch a group of teachers walked out of the library while I was crawling on the floor and asked why I was on the floor. Having no answer, besides I couldn't walk, they sent me to the office along with the help of some of my fellow classmates. After being sent to the office, they looked at my ankle once more and now it was swollen to the size of an egg. I was sent to the hospital and had a cast put on.

          The reason I was interested in T.N.T. was because I love history. Only through studying history can we prevent the mistakes of the past from occurring in the present and future. T.N.T. focuses on the periods of human slavery forced upon the African population, and we need to expose the horrors of this period so that history will not repeat itself. Slavery in this country weakened the African cultures in Africa and destroyed the heritage and culture of those brought over to the Americas. This is probably one of the greatest tragedies known to mankind and we should never allow the enslavement of a person to another for any reason ever again.