Learn about Mr. Blanck

After high school I entered Central Lakes College, a small college in central Minnesota where I completed an associate in arts degree in liberal arts and theatre performance, including courses in theatre, humanities, and environmental studies.  I went on to Bemidji State University where I earned a BS in Environmental Studies and, after a semester abroad at Oxford University, a BA in Social Studies/History.  Throughout my time at Bemidji I also maintained my interest and participation in music and theatre.

In the summers I worked with kids in the wilderness.   First in the Adirondack Park of upstate New York, then in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area in northern Minnesota.  I learned a lot about God, myself, and working with young people.  Fresh out of college I taught for a year in the town of Albert Lea, Minnesota.  The next summer I served as a Congressional intern in Washington D.C. for an inspiring servant of the people named Jim Oberstar.  When the school year started that next fall I found myself back in the northwoods at Pequot Lakes School.  I ended up teaching there for 16 years and had some amazing and life changing experiences through my contact with some great colleagues and wonderful students.

One of the most important was rediscovering theatre arts in a big way.  My principal asked me to take on the speech and theatre programs at Pequot Lakes because he had faith that I could make a go of them.  I think I was reasonably successful.  A number of my students were state finalists in speech (or forensics) and two were state champions one year.  I directed about 20 plays including some really fun one acts, comedies, dramas, and musicals.  I also taught environmental science and social studies (humanities) classes.  In the course of being employed in Pequot Lakes, I had a chance to complete my masters degree in education at the University of Wisconsin - Superior and earn a post graduate diploma in Acting and Musical Theatre at the Guildford School of Acting in Great Britain while on a sabbatical leave.

In 2002 I met and married my beautiful wife, Michelle.  Our story is really kind of cute but Michelle tells it better than I can.  It involves a small town airport, a pair of snow shoes, and Michelle's land lady Shirley.  I'm really simplifying here.  Anyhow with the help of my friend Rob I proposed and she said yes and we were married in the little Lutheran Church in Nisswa.  We now have two kids, Elijah and Sophia.  They are both just amazing and so is their mommy.

Now we find ourselves in the Republic of Korea where I have been honored to teach some pretty cool young people with some great fellow teachers.

Last but far from least, I am a follower of Jesus Christ.  I believe in a loving God who reveals himself in all creation.  He is the still small voice on the mountaintop, the wind across a northern lake, and the tear in a child's eye.  He sent his son to live among us, to reveal to us in his ministry and life how God intends for us to live.  Jesus became the atonement for our sin, the payment of all out debts.  It is nothing I do that justifies me before my creator, but what Christ did for me on a cross 2000 years ago.