Welcome Gino!

We’re excited to announce the arrival of Gino, our new Writing Intern!

Gino is a senior at Hamline University studying Communication and Digital Media Arts. He aspires to be a journalist and also has experience working with elementary students as a Page Scholar for the Page Education Foundation. For the past few years, Gino has volunteered at Hamline Elementary in St. Paul, Minnesota to help elementary students with mathematics, reading and writing. He also carries that passion for reading and writing as an aspiring journalist, covering sports for his school newspaper (The Oracle) and arts and entertainment stories for the Twin Cities Daily Planet.

To get to know him, we asked Gino to tell us a little about his school days:

What teacher inspired you the most?

I had many teachers that inspired me, but the person who inspired me the most was my sophomore teacher in high school at Maple Grove Senior High. She encouraged me to try journalism and told me that I had a “gift” for writing and that I may find my niche. It turns out she was right and since then I continued journalism writing. If it wasn’t for her, I’d probably still be undecided what career to try.

What was your favorite Halloween costume?

One of my favorite Halloween costumes was when I was in kindergarten and I dressed up as Elmo. I even had an Elmo belt and when I pressed the button on the belt buckle Elmo’s voice would come from the belt, “hahahaha…hahahaha…that tickles.”

As a kid what were your favorite shows?

I loved watching Sesame Street and I even had a VHS Tape that went through each letter of the alphabet. I also loved watching super heroes as two new one’s emerged when I was little, Batman Beyond and Max Steel. I had action figures of both!

How did you spend recess in elementary school?

When I was a student at Fair Oaks Elementary, every once and a while students were required to go around the track either walking or running three times (for one mile) doing anything else at recess. I always tried to be the first one to finish but two always beat me, mainly because their class went to recess first. The day my class left for recess two minutes early was the day I became the fastest one on the track.

What was your favorite school lunch?

Brunch for lunch! I loved it since kindergarten and all the way until I went to high school. I even held the record for most French Toast Sticks ate at one lunch in high school, I ate 26 and the only reason I didn’t go for more was because lunch was over.