Henry, Lucas

Name: Lucas M. Henry
Subjects: 10th and 11th grade English
Education: American University
Previous Jobs: volunteering, tutoring, mail sorter, pizza delivery, fried chicken delivery
Came to Blair in: 1999
Hobbies: running, reading, watching T.V.
Extracurricular Clubs: Poetry Club

He's worked as a volunteer, a tutor, as a mail sorter, a pizza delivery guy and has also delivered fried chicken. Few have a résumé as varied as Lucas Henry, English teacher extraordinaire.

Lucas Henry

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He sits in the English office, recently arriving from class, calmly grading papers. This seems to be a typical routine for the young educator. Black hair, glasses, brown eyes; he seems to be the typical teacher, but he is not, not at all.

Henry was raised in Baldwin, New York, a small town in Long Island. "Every town down there is pretty much the same," he says with a chuckle. He would spend his time watching movies and playing around with his siblings. "My favorite movie is The Big Lebowski, just a really quotable movie. I remember that me and my brother would end up just quoting lines back and forth from the movie to pass time." After finishing high school in New York, he went to college at American University.

After his freshman year in college, he needed some money. "I was a little lazy and there was a chicken place next to my mom's office, so I walked in and got a job. There were some … uh … weird things that happened on that job," he says, referring to rumors from several students that he delivered the chicken to a strip club, reddening noticeably. But this wasn't the only extracurricular activity he participated in at the time.

Henry was also DJ for the school's radio station. Henry and his friends would host a comedy talk show, give away prizes, and research weird topics. "Basically, I just got all my friends to listen to it, you know? Nobody listens to college radio anyway," he states.

Henry was appalled, not at the size of Blair; but at its color scheme. "It [Blair] wasn't shockingly big, the first thing I thought was like 'Who was in charge of picking the colors in this place?' because everything looked so plasticky," he replies with a grin, "But I was impressed because, at the time, it was a brand new building with a lot of computers and a friendly staff."

He usually arrives at Blair around 6:45 A.M. and teaches his classes, tenth and eleventh grade English, until the end of school. After school ends, he works a second job as a tutor on afternoons until 4:00 P.M. If he doesn't have any tutoring to do, he usually goes and runs in the afternoon.

When he doesn't have to go to school, however, Henry likes to watch football and go out to eat with his friends and just relax. "On the weekends, I watch a scary amount of football. I like a good revenge game like when [Bill] Parcells meets his former team or something like that." He also likes to sleep in. "I try to sleep late, but it's like my body is programmed to wake up early; I just can't sleep in," he reveals.

Leaning back in a chair he waits out the remainder of third period, ready to begin teaching his classes once again. For some, like Henry, the daily routine of school is not so much of a grind.