Living the dream
For local teens, there’s no time like the present to pursue great achievements
We all have dreams – big, outrageous goals we cook up in our 20s and cling to throughout our lives.
We will write the Great American Novel … someday. Sure, we could learn guitar and become rock stars … if we wanted to. One day, we’ll ditch this rat race and start our own business. Seriously. We mean it this time.
Most of us revisit these dreams occasionally – when the daily responsibilities of jobs and family start turning us into self-contained breathing, diaper-changing, bill-paying machines. And when we do, we revert to the familiar mantra: “Someday, someday.”
If only we’d started earlier.
Alexandra Keathley, Nick Mason and local Christian rock band 77 Times did. Each one of these local teenagers can boast creative and business accomplishments most adults are still waiting for.
Here they are: an author, an entrepreneur and a rock band, all younger than 19.
Keathley finished her first novel – the 26,000-word “Belle Dolore” – in just three months.
Starting in April, Keathley, 16, spent most of her summer vacation filling page after page with stories about vampires. She finished the book in July.
Not that it was easy. Keathley gave herself a goal to write at least one paragraph a day. And even that was difficult, she says.
“I got frustrated with it,” she says. “I get a lot of writer’s block. So, sometimes I’d just sit at the computer and not be able to write for an hour.”
Keathley, a junior at Snider High School, is a fan of the vampire-themed fiction of authors such as Anne Rice. But writing her own vampire novel was a departure for her. Before “Belle Dolore,” Keathley cribbed most of her ideas from other authors.
“I wanted to make my own idea up from scratch,” she says. “I didn’t make an outline or anything. I just sat down and started writing.”
Keathley’s father, an English teacher, is helping edit the book and send copies to a handful of literary agents. But for now, just finishing it is the greatest accomplishment, she says.
“I was shocked when I finished it,” she says. “I just thought, ‘Whoa. I got the whole story written.’ I couldn’t believe it.”
Mason just hired his first employee.
“It’s weird,” Mason, a senior at Northrop High School, says. “I’m the boss. I knew eventually that’s what I’d want to be, though.”
Mason, 18, registered his Web-development business – Mason Designing – with the state of Indiana two months ago. Already business is booming. In fact, in between building Web sites for 15 clients and lining up future jobs, Mason hasn’t had time to work on the Web site for his own business. Well, that’s the life of an entrepreneur, he says.
“I basically work constantly,” Mason says. “Starting a business is definitely not easy. I’m working all the time now, so I don’t sleep much.”
Before owning a business, Mason was a sandwich maker at Penn Station and a groundskeeper at a local golf course. Back then, his hands may have been covered in grass clippings and smelled like onions, but his mind was focused on the future.
“I always knew I would be an entrepreneur,” he says. “I always kept that in mind and tried to see everything as a business opportunity.”
Mason found inspiration while taking entrepreneurial courses at Anthis Career Center. The school’s entrepreneurial program, which focuses on starting your own arts-based business, motivated him to seek out his first job: building a Web site for The Party Boat Band (www.partyboatband.com).
He had a plan, he says. Provide Web sites. Don’t charge too much.
“I’ve done job shadows for other Web design firms,” Mason says. “The rates are crazy.”
Mason runs his business out of his home, assigning work and updating his employee – who is in his 20s – about projects. His parents are proud and, well, a little surprised, too.
“Once they saw how I’m growing and how well I’m doing, they just couldn’t believe it,” he says. “They didn’t see the opportunity like I did. They’re really excited.”
You’d think the members of local Christian rock band 77 Times would get lost on a big stage.
Not quite out of middle school, the band – vocalist and guitarist Alex Renbarger, drummer Evan Turner, guitarist Hogan Brecount and bassist/keyboardist Jesse Hardiek – looks like just a bunch of kids. But on stage, they rip into songs like musicians twice their age, slashing through grinding guitar riffs and thunderous drums with speed and volume.
All their music is original. It’s a quality that sets the band apart, Turner says.
“We noticed we all had this talent for writing original music,” he says. “It just seemed to come to us. So we stay away from covers because it’ll get you further.”
“A lot of people ask us how old we are,” Renbarger says. “Partly because we’re getting pretty good at what we do.”
They have the accolades to back it up, too. Not only did the band win “Fort Wayne’s Got Talent” in 2009 and open for John Tesh at the Auer Performance Hall, but they also won the statewide “Indiana’s Got Talent” competition in 2009 and were one of the top 20 bands nationwide in the “Air1’s Got Talent” contest.
Currently, the band is competing in “Rock the Camp,” a contest sponsored by Camp Electric in Nashville, Tenn. The band beat out more than 700 entries and will perform in the competition’s semifinals.
And they’ve done it all without compromising their message of Christian forgiveness.
“The whole idea behind the band’s name is based in a parable from the Book of Matthew,” Brecount says. “It says not to just forgive your brother seven times; forgive him 77 times.”
Christianity influences all aspects of the band, especially the lyrics, Renbarger says.
“It’s an encouraging message that can lead others to Christ and teach them they can forgive like Jesus has done for them,” he says. “Our whole focus is about God being a remedy for any Christian struggles we might have.”
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