Casey Williams

The Senior Scoop is a collaboration between administration and the Class of 2023, allowing the senior class to share their experiences, hopes, dreams, and reflections. In this episode, host Chris Ming interviews senior Casey Williams, who talks about his excitement for graduating and starting a full-time job as a cook at Wheeler's restaurant. Casey also discusses his plans to attend Alpena Community College in the fall, where he will play basketball and study marketing or sociology. He shares his interest in helping others overcome past traumas and his appreciation for the support he has received from his father, aunt, uncle, and school faculty. Casey's advice to others is to embrace their differences and not be afraid to stand out. The Senior Scoop is an opportunity for the community to hear directly from the senior class about their experiences, hopes, dreams, and reflections. The Scoop is a result of a collaboration between administration and the Class of 2023. We hope you'll enjoy chilling with us each week as we dish up a sweet treat of accumulated Wolverine wisdom 13 years in the making and introduce you to the fantastic young men and women who will soon become AGS alumni and tomorrow's community leaders. I'm your Senior Scoop host, Chris Ming, the proud superintendent of the Augury Sims School District. Thanks for listening. Now let's dig in. Good morning, it's almost afternoon here at Augury Sims and it is the final week for our senior class which means this is one of our final Senior Scoops and I am greeted here today with Senior Casey Williams. So Casey, thanks for stepping into the studio today. No problem. Alright, so Casey, a day and a half left. Yup. How do you feel? I'm excited. Okay, you sound really excited. Oh yeah. Okay, so what are you excited about? Just being able to pick up the rest of the responsibilities that you don't really get to have in high school. Instead of moving from my part-time job, I get to go on full-time so it's more money in my account. So there's just a lot more to expect. Okay, so what is that full-time job then that you're going to move into here? Lately I've been working at Wheeler's in Standish. I've been there for about a month and a half now. Waiting tables, cooking, cleaning? What are you doing there? I do all the cooking. Okay, you like that? Yeah, it's actually pretty fun. I started at H&H about a year and a half ago maybe now and then I moved to Alley's so it's like such basic foods. I got to move more into like better cuisine stuff and now I'm over at Wheeler's where I have a lot more options to cook so it's not just the same thing every time. Okay, so a couple different restaurants. Do you like the business then? Is this something you're interested in? It's just an easy business to get your hands on at a younger age especially with the accounts and stuff that you have now. It's a lot easier to get to a job that's easier to pick up on. Sure. I worked at a couple restaurants. One was a sports bar when I was in college and then one was a restaurant in my hometown. I wasn't on the back end though. I was on the front end. So bartending and waiting tables, that type of thing but you're right. It's a good business to work in. You can make some decent money in it because there's always need for it especially up north during the summer so that's good. So like we said, day and a half left of high school. What's your fondest memory? That's kind of hard although I'm ready to get out of here. I spent a lot of fun times but I guess I'd have to go. There was a game in Whittemore, I think my sophomore year. We played here at home. I hit the game winning shot for that off of a steal. That was pretty electric. Okay. And how long have you been a student at AGS? All 13 years. Okay. So you're one of those lifers. You've been here for a long time. So not Monday because that's Memorial Day but Tuesday morning. Don't have to wake up. You don't have to get ready for school. You're not going to be coming to 310 Court Street. What are you going to do Tuesday morning? I have to go to work. Okay. So you get up and drive right past us heading on down to Wheeler's, right? No, I actually live over in the Omer area so I don't even have to go through Algrave. Okay. So a little different there. Has it really sunk in that after 13 years, it's coming to an end? Yeah, I've kind of prepared myself a lot, like setting up jobs in areas that's going to be easier to get to so I'm not going back to the same path every day so I'm not just not, I don't know, I guess it's hard to word when I'm not doing like the same schedule, I guess. Okay. So I'm getting myself like ready to start a new pattern. All right. So what does next fall look like for you? After the summer, you know, that might not seem too different because the summer is the summer and you've had those before but in the fall, you're not coming back here. No, I'm headed over to Alpena Community College. Okay. And I think we had an announcement recently involving you. What is that announcement? I'm going to go over there and play some basketball for them. That's exciting. And what are you hoping to study while you're up there? I'm between marketing and sociology so like helping people get through past memories so they can move on to a brighter future, I guess. Okay. But non-clinical. You said sociology, right? Okay. So why are you interested in that? When I was younger, I had a really rough childhood so at any point, even if it's going to cost thousands of dollars, it's well spent if I can help children in my position. Okay. Well, excellent. Well, that's a very noble cause. Is there a need for that around here? Not so much around this area but when you get to like the larger cities, it's a lot easier business to get into. So I know in like the first couple of years, I've been told multiple times it's a rough job to get into and it's not the best mental job, I guess. But I don't know, anything to help pretty much. Any time when you work with people, you're going to have the strain that they have. So I would say it's a noble profession but it is going to be one you're going to have to take care of yourself. Have you found any useful strategies for helping yourself through some of those stressful situations? Honestly, that's what basketball was for me because I'm never one to like talk about things. I like to say to myself, so basketball was my form of therapy. Okay. I understand that's not the same for everyone though, right? You're not going to have all your patients out there in the basketball court, right? Exactly. Okay. So what do you expect will be different academically as you make the step from Audrey Sims up to Alpena? Well, obviously, any form of schooling, high school, kindergarten, anything, you're going to, as your age progresses, so is like the form of work that you're going to do. So I understand that it's going to be a lot more difficult at that profession but just something you have to get through just to. Okay. All right. So let's dive into the random segment. This is the most fun for me anyway because I can just throw a random, weird question at you. We'll see how you react on it. So you heard the rapid fire I gave Keegan. I wouldn't necessarily go there. So let's come up with a new one for you. Okay. I asked about spaghetti and Cheerios and the warm up before we started recording and all about spaghetti on that. All right. So we're going to go in the opposite direction then. If you could only pick one dessert to have for the rest of your life, what would it be and why? Well, that's a little tough. There's a lot of good desserts out there. I'd have to go brownies. Brownies. Okay. Is there a reason? I don't really like cake because of frosting. But cake was made without frosting, which a brownie pretty much is. I like chocolate. I can't eat it by itself. So it's like, I don't know, just perfect. All right. So you like cake but not the frosting. It's the frosting that most people like about cake. I mean, if it's whipped cream frosting, it's good. Okay. I guess it's more of like a texture thing than anything. I don't really like super sweet things. Okay. All right. So help me out with something. What is the difference between a brownie and cake? Cocoa? There's plenty of cocoa in cake. I mean, if it's chocolate cake anyway. I honestly have no clue. Neither do I. That's why I asked. I mean, I just figured, you know, you seem to like your brownies so much, you might have the answer to that question. The only noticeable difference for me is like the density. Okay. Feels a little bit thicker? Mm-hmm. Okay. All right. So that was one random question. We'll go off with another one here. Favorite movie? Oh, that's easy. What's the name of this movie? I know you say that. Pursuit of Happiness with Will Smith. Okay. And why? I don't know. It teaches you a lot. As you see, like, him progress through life. He had his kid and he made sure to push the kid first all the time. It kind of shows you, like, as a man's perspective of, like, what being a real man is about. You can't always think about yourself. You always have to try even when you feel like you're at the bottom. Okay. So do you think your path is going to be easy after you leave here? No, not one bit. You've overcome a lot of adversity already. But life isn't designed to be easy. There's going to be trials. There will be challenges. How are you prepared now compared to maybe when you started here to take on those trials and tribulations? I can't say that there's a noticeable difference for me to just say at the moment. It'd be something I'd have to, like, dig deeper into to honestly find. Okay. Is there anyone here that you would like to thank for your, I guess, for walking across the stage and helped you maybe when you were having some of those challenges? Oh, yes, most definitely. First of all, I'd like to thank my father. He's brought me through this world. I don't really have a mom, so he had to do both parts, and I understand how hard that can be. I'd like to thank my aunt and Uncle Huey. They helped quite a bit, more than anybody quite knows. I wrote a letter and everything for them just kind of so I can get that point across. And I guess for faculty here, I'd like to thank any of the coaches I've had because without them it wouldn't be possible for me to go play college basketball. And all the staff here that's helped me obtain good grades, being able to have the opportunity to go to college in general. Okay. Are you going to share this with your aunt and uncle and your dad? They've all heard it before. I guess share this podcast so they can hear it on a recording. Oh, definitely. Excellent. All right, so we're at that point where we start to wrap things up a little bit. If you had some words of advice, now this can be to your former self, knowing how you've come out on the other side of some of those challenges you've faced, or it could be to maybe that kid right now who's walking these hallways who might or might not be sharing those challenges that they're facing. What would your words be? I was always a smaller kid, so it was a lot easier for people to pick on me. But when I did stand out, so I would say don't let that, you being different, standing out, don't let that be a part of your character because you're scared that people are going to judge you. It's really hard to read white words on a white piece of paper. You're just going to blend in. What's the point of actually putting yourself out there? I think that's very wise, and one of the things that I've shared with anyone who will listen to about it is when you're in middle school and you're in high school, fitting in seems to be the thing you want to do the most. You want to be cool. You want to be part of this group. You want to be part of that group. But next Friday, you're going to walk across that stage, and from that point forward the rest of your life, it's going to be about trying to make yourself unique. You want to stand out. You want to be different. You want to be more than just the resume that blends in with everybody else. So I think it's very wise that at 18, 17, even better, even wiser, at that age you're realizing that it's not about fitting in. It's about standing out. And you've got to take some chances to get there. So Casey, I appreciate your time today. I want to wish you the very best, and thank you for sitting down here today with me for the Senior Scoop. Thank you for having me. This has been a production of the Algrave Student School District. Thanks for tuning in, and we hope you join us again soon for another Senior Scoop.