Stephen Hanks by Jessica D.
Steven Hanks (1980-1984)
Steven Manly Hanks was born and raised in Everett, Washington. He was born in 1966 and had a pretty average childhood in that he went to school starting at age five like normal. He started at Cascade in 1980 and graduated in 1984. After high school he went to college in Arizona, where a lot of his family lived. Afterward, he moved back to Everett and got a job as a mechanic for Everett Community Transit, and has worked there ever since. He soon met the love of his life, Judi. She already had a son from a different marriage, but after Steve and Judi’s marriege, Steve began to think of her son as his own. They eventually had a daughter of their own, Kirsten, who currently is a junior at Cascade. They still live in the area, only a block or two away from Cascade itself.
Life at Cascade
I guess it just seemed like school. [I was] not necessarily a big fan of school so I just kind of went there did my classes. I did like the extracurricular stuff after school I ran track my freshmen year. I wasn't a big sports fan. I would go to the football games once in a while but my family and I always did activities away from this area, so Friday night we would we would go east to the mountains. I was actually in Ellensburg when the mountain blew [Mt St Helens] so we had to spend the night and miss school the next day and we couldn't get out of the town. We had to stay there. That weekend we were at my grandma's house. So I really didn't do football. In the evenings stuff got in the way for extracurricular activities.
[Sports were] pretty much the same as today they had football, swimming, tennis, wrestling.
Sophomore year I started working, I actually got a job at a body shop my sophomore year basically as soon as I started driving, to support the car. It was down in Lynnwood and I would go there after school until 5:30, 6:00. Then I went home to help my dad, who was a well driller and a lot of times I would go in the evening after work and would go work for him till 11, 12 o’clock. Then I could get away from home or work, and I enjoyed school a little more.
Most of my teachers were pretty nice. I only had a couple that I would say were just that really dry, monotone. I went to sno-isle my junior and senior year. My welding [teacher] I liked, his outlook and the way he saw things. I liked my small mechanics teacher at Cascade too: his personality, and his look on stuff. I liked my mechanical drawing teacher. He seemed very gruff and very mean, but just to the point, and you maybe didn't like it at the time but after a while you figured out that he made sense. We had the rent a cop who walked around the parking lot. He was a district employee, he wasn't a police officer.
The first couple of years the majority of people bought lunch, then I think it was my junior year they built the Burger King, which is now Burgermaster. When they did that people started going up there. It was very busy. As a matter of fact it was so busy they made special lines just for students. Technically it was a closed campus so we weren't allowed to leave but people would do it. In detention you’d stay late and had to work on stuff. No paddle; they got rid of them in Junior High. I don't remember getting in too much trouble in high school.
I wasn't really part of any of the cliques. You had the club people, the football people, and I mean each little group had their own people. I knew a lot of them because I'm related to a lot of them even though I wasn't part of their group. I could go around so I wasn't an outcast like they treat some people. [For fun] we used to go to the mall and the movies. We used to cruise in the cars to downtown Everett, at least on weekends and nighttime.
I think back when I was in school teachers and counselors didn't make a big deal about college. If you were doing better in school or if you were asking they were really good about helping. I actually had a teacher from junior high who became a counselor at the high school and she really helped me as far as getting through and getting things on track, but I can't say that she pushed as far as college.
High school didn't work for me all that well so I really had a tough time. When I got out of high school and I went to college I thought wow high school’s pretty easy. The college type stuff, I can't say that it was hard, but it was different. For one your mind changes because you don't have to be there, you go there because you want to be there and want to learn something. Especially when you're having a bad day it doesn't drag on quite so bad as high school. You know high school is just miserable and college wasn't too bad. I would say stick with it. It’s easier to now in high school than when you get my age. It's tough because you get out of school and you got work and just about all jobs are going to require reading and I was basically in the mechanical end of things. In mechanics you think well who needs that. Who needs math, who needs to read. Well, I do. That's actually a lot of what I do now. I don't particularly work with the wrenches anymore. The automotive world is very much computer controlled now. I do a lot with computers, which is part of my job. I have about 7 or 8 computers that I maintain, set up for working on the vehicles, so reading and learning how to set them up is important. That's where I see the difference in reading. I'm getting better, and there's 3 main areas [that I need to know]: reading, writing, and math. I do fortunately know enough of math in the area of that I work, but there's a lot of other math that would make things easier. But I have to struggle around it. It’s just extra work for me. That's why I push my kids to read more, because reading makes a big difference in all your work and all life. I found that out after school and that was a big driver as an adult to push people to read. That will really help all the way around.
Steven Manly Hanks was born and raised in Everett, Washington. He was born in 1966 and had a pretty average childhood in that he went to school starting at age five like normal. He started at Cascade in 1980 and graduated in 1984. After high school he went to college in Arizona, where a lot of his family lived. Afterward, he moved back to Everett and got a job as a mechanic for Everett Community Transit, and has worked there ever since. He soon met the love of his life, Judi. She already had a son from a different marriage, but after Steve and Judi’s marriege, Steve began to think of her son as his own. They eventually had a daughter of their own, Kirsten, who currently is a junior at Cascade. They still live in the area, only a block or two away from Cascade itself.
Life at Cascade
I guess it just seemed like school. [I was] not necessarily a big fan of school so I just kind of went there did my classes. I did like the extracurricular stuff after school I ran track my freshmen year. I wasn't a big sports fan. I would go to the football games once in a while but my family and I always did activities away from this area, so Friday night we would we would go east to the mountains. I was actually in Ellensburg when the mountain blew [Mt St Helens] so we had to spend the night and miss school the next day and we couldn't get out of the town. We had to stay there. That weekend we were at my grandma's house. So I really didn't do football. In the evenings stuff got in the way for extracurricular activities.
[Sports were] pretty much the same as today they had football, swimming, tennis, wrestling.
Sophomore year I started working, I actually got a job at a body shop my sophomore year basically as soon as I started driving, to support the car. It was down in Lynnwood and I would go there after school until 5:30, 6:00. Then I went home to help my dad, who was a well driller and a lot of times I would go in the evening after work and would go work for him till 11, 12 o’clock. Then I could get away from home or work, and I enjoyed school a little more.
Most of my teachers were pretty nice. I only had a couple that I would say were just that really dry, monotone. I went to sno-isle my junior and senior year. My welding [teacher] I liked, his outlook and the way he saw things. I liked my small mechanics teacher at Cascade too: his personality, and his look on stuff. I liked my mechanical drawing teacher. He seemed very gruff and very mean, but just to the point, and you maybe didn't like it at the time but after a while you figured out that he made sense. We had the rent a cop who walked around the parking lot. He was a district employee, he wasn't a police officer.
The first couple of years the majority of people bought lunch, then I think it was my junior year they built the Burger King, which is now Burgermaster. When they did that people started going up there. It was very busy. As a matter of fact it was so busy they made special lines just for students. Technically it was a closed campus so we weren't allowed to leave but people would do it. In detention you’d stay late and had to work on stuff. No paddle; they got rid of them in Junior High. I don't remember getting in too much trouble in high school.
I wasn't really part of any of the cliques. You had the club people, the football people, and I mean each little group had their own people. I knew a lot of them because I'm related to a lot of them even though I wasn't part of their group. I could go around so I wasn't an outcast like they treat some people. [For fun] we used to go to the mall and the movies. We used to cruise in the cars to downtown Everett, at least on weekends and nighttime.
I think back when I was in school teachers and counselors didn't make a big deal about college. If you were doing better in school or if you were asking they were really good about helping. I actually had a teacher from junior high who became a counselor at the high school and she really helped me as far as getting through and getting things on track, but I can't say that she pushed as far as college.
High school didn't work for me all that well so I really had a tough time. When I got out of high school and I went to college I thought wow high school’s pretty easy. The college type stuff, I can't say that it was hard, but it was different. For one your mind changes because you don't have to be there, you go there because you want to be there and want to learn something. Especially when you're having a bad day it doesn't drag on quite so bad as high school. You know high school is just miserable and college wasn't too bad. I would say stick with it. It’s easier to now in high school than when you get my age. It's tough because you get out of school and you got work and just about all jobs are going to require reading and I was basically in the mechanical end of things. In mechanics you think well who needs that. Who needs math, who needs to read. Well, I do. That's actually a lot of what I do now. I don't particularly work with the wrenches anymore. The automotive world is very much computer controlled now. I do a lot with computers, which is part of my job. I have about 7 or 8 computers that I maintain, set up for working on the vehicles, so reading and learning how to set them up is important. That's where I see the difference in reading. I'm getting better, and there's 3 main areas [that I need to know]: reading, writing, and math. I do fortunately know enough of math in the area of that I work, but there's a lot of other math that would make things easier. But I have to struggle around it. It’s just extra work for me. That's why I push my kids to read more, because reading makes a big difference in all your work and all life. I found that out after school and that was a big driver as an adult to push people to read. That will really help all the way around.