John McGowan

Wright City High School senior 

School Activities: Soccer, NHS, FCA, band and golf. 

Favorite Food: Burgers

Favorite Movie: The Blind Side

Fun Fact: “I play the guitar and the bass.” 

If you could go to one place in the world, where would it be? “I would want to go over to Yellowstone and the mountains out west. Everything over there looks so pretty and I’d love to go look at that.” 

Who do you most look up to? Jesus 

What do you play in band? 

“I was in percussion, so I played the drums.” 

What interested you in joining band? 

“I enjoy music. I initially started playing the saxophone and my brother was in percussion, so he told me maybe I should try out for that, and so I did.” 

How did you get involved with FCA? 

“It started off with me and a couple of my buddies, Micah and Noah (Boeckman), we were doing a Bible study and we met after school on Wednesdays when we had an early release. We would meet up for an hour and do a Bible study in one of those study rooms at the old building. Mrs. Hernandez, who was in charge of FCA last year, said ‘that’s really cool. Next year, our leaders for FCA are leaving and I would love it if you guys would come help out,’ so she was the one who got us plugged into that.” 

What has it been like being a part of that club?

“It’s been really good. The program has definitely grown, maybe not numbers wise, but the way the leaders figured out how to run and coordinate things– it works a lot better. FCA itself is a program where they have devotionals online that you are supposed to do but we’ve kind of veered away from that and have more so been preaching the Gospel and general information about Christianity to bring people in and get them to know Jesus.” 

What has being a captain in soccer taught you?

“It’s just always been important to me to lead by example. Like, I hate it when I have a manager or someone who’s in charge and they tell you to do all these things but they’re slacking off themselves, so I made sure I was doing the extra work and showing people how to do things, instead of just telling them to do it. That has really helped me and I feel like it helped the other guys as well and made me more approachable to them.” 

What have you gained through being a part of all of these activities?

“I do it more for the community aspect and being around people from school, like my friends because I don’t really see them outside of sports and activities. It’s a way for me to connect with everyone and stay involved with my friends.” 

What has it been like taking college-level courses at St. Charles Community College?

“Honestly, it hasn’t been much of a struggle for me and it’s been nice having the freedom. Last semester, I started taking classes twice a week instead of classes Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday my sophomore year. So, I started doing my classes twice a week and more online classes. It was a good decision because it’s a similar workload and you don’t lose much by not being in class. I’ve just enjoyed the freedom of being able to do what I want throughout the day and it has allowed me to work more and do things at my own pace. After this semester, I’ll have my Associate of Arts.” 

What’s your favorite course that you have taken there?

“I enjoyed my physical science lab. It was fun being able to do hands-on things. Last semester, I had a macroeconomics class and the class itself was okay but I really liked my professor and actually took a class with him again this semester because I liked him so much.” 

What are your post-grad plans?

“I’m going to go to Samford University in Alabama and I’m going to study Business Entrepreneurship.” 

What do you want to do career-wise?

“I want to go into real estate. It’s a versatile field and people are always going to need houses and buildings, so it’s not going to go out of demand. There’s also a lot of room to make money.”