Alex Bauer recently added an additional honor to his status as Iola High School 2015 class valedictorian: the Governor’s Scholars Award. The award recognizes students in the top 1 percent of Kansas high school seniors. Bauer was the only Iolan invited to attend the ceremony, where he received a certificate and personal congratulations from the governor.
He is also the recipient of the Chancellor Scholarship, the largest award handed out by the University of Kansas, where Bauer will begin his college career this fall.
But Bauer wears his laurels lightly. He’s thoughtful in conversation, easy to smile, with a dry wit. And anyone who attended Iola’s prom this year — where Bauer, in a powder blue suit and top hat, and his friend Kaden Macha, in clashing orange, chauffeured their dates to the dance in a car outfitted to look like a dog — knows that the senior’s seriousness as a student is leavened by his sense of fun.
Lawrence will be a natural fit for the firstborn son of Jim and Shelby Bauer. According to Bauer, the college town, which his family visits frequently, has for many years felt to him “like a second home.”
Bauer grew up attending KU sporting events, and passes the only test of true fandom by dedicating himself as passionately to the school’s struggling football team — “these fans are rare” — as he does to their more victorious basketball program. “We have season tickets to both,” says Bauer.
For years a multi-sport student-athlete himself — football, basketball and baseball — the straight-A student decided this year to skip baseball, “because I had calculus and physics and a bunch of stuff like that.”
Bauer’s intellectual curiosity ranges outside the school day, too. For years he’s been a passionate reader. “There was one point a couple of years ago where I was reading probably 15 books, and I just thought I should probably focus on a couple at a time. For a while I stuck to one. And then I let it get away again.” Today, Bauer figures he’s got at least seven on the go.
“I’m reading a science fiction anthology, a Stephen King anthology. ‘Lord of the Flies,’ I think. And ‘Don Juan’ — you know, by George Byron, old school Romantic.”
“Don Juan” is a poem that begins with a mother sending her teenage son out into the wider world to seek a moral education, a program which is constantly interrupted because of Juan’s charismatic effect on the fairer sex. Does Bauer take any lessons from this cautionary tale?
“I am taking lessons, yes,” Bauer deadpans. “All you have to do is look good and act innocent, and the ladies will love you.”
Bauer plans to convert his appetite for books into a minor in English or creative writing while at KU. However, his main area of study will likely be biology or chemistry, something in line with the school’s pre-med track. “Right now, I will major in anything I am good at and that I like.”
Bauer describes his family — which includes a younger sister, Katie — as close. He knows they’ll miss him when he leaves. But the transition will be easier, he suspects, because Lawrence is only a short drive away. “They’re acting like it’s OK,” Bauer says of his parents, “but I think they’re kind of freaking out. We have a ton of vacations planned this summer. I think they just want to spend a lot of time with me. We always spend a lot of quality time with each other, which is nice. I really like having a tight family.”
Regarding his four years at IHS, says Bauer, “I’ll always remember how the temperature can change drastically from one floor to the other, how I can all at once hate the place and enjoy being there. It’s weird, it’s bittersweet. … I guess after I leave I’m not going to be seeing too many of the people that I’ve been around all my life, but I’ll definitely take a lot of good memories from them.”
But he’s not ready to put his hometown in the rearview mirror just yet, not permanently. “I mean, Iola is my home. I’ve always kept the option of coming back open. I’ve honestly thought about it a lot. A lot of people are like ‘I can’t wait to get out’ — and, I mean, I’m one of them; I can’t wait to get out and explore — but after exploring is done, if this is still my home and I still feel at home here, why not come back.”
Love of learning spurs on Bauer
