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Teen of the Week: Parkersburg South sophomore enjoys being active and responsible

By Brett Dunlap 4 min read

PARKERSBURG -- A Parkersburg South student is poolside helping to keep young people safe as well as devoting his time to being outdoors, being in marching band and fixing cars.

Alex Kestner, 16, a sophomore, works as a lifeguard at the pool at the Parkersburg Boys and Girls Club.

He originally knew the previous lifeguard and knew the job was going to be available and they would need someone.

"I have my lifeguard certification and I wasn't using it," he said. "It was a good job that I was looking at for a while."

To become a lifeguard, there is a swim test and a number of drills people have to go through including skills involving lifesaving and different scenarios that might come up, he said.

The majority of the job involves disciplining kids, telling them not to run, telling them to be safe and addressing things before they become a problem and someone could get hurt that would require him to take further action, he said.

Kestner has been at the Boys and Girls Club for a couple of months and he had previously worked a summer at the DuPont pool.

He also is in marching band for Parkersburg South where he plays the sousaphone (referred to by some as a tuba).

"It is something I have enjoyed and stuck with," he said.

He has been in band since fifth grade and originally played the trombone before a teacher convinced him to switch to the sousaphone.

"I tried it out and just stuck with it," he said. "They needed tuba players because there weren't as many."

Kestner said he likes going to competitions and playing with everyone else.

"It is like being on a team," he said. "It is just something that I enjoy."

He has been involved with the Boy Scouts and will be taking a trip to Bear Creek in Alaska this July and canoeing for around 100 miles.

He is also involved in the Auto Tech program at the Wood County Technical School.

"It is something that I really enjoy,'' he said. "I work on cars a lot.

"I have three cars of my own that I pretty much work on and try to fix up."

His goal is to fix them up to where they are better than when he got them and sell them for a profit or keep them and continually customize them.

He has a 1988 Honda Accord, a 1999 Chevy S-10 and a 2004 Volkswagen Jetta.

He looks for parts, buying many as there are not many salvage yards around.

"It depends on how rare it is," he said.

In working on his truck, he said there is a body kit that he took off of it and redid to make it look better. He is doing some body work on it right now to make it look better because it had some dents. He is putting some different panels on it to make it look more "performancy." He is planning to put a turbo on it soon.

"I just like working on cars,'' Kestner said. "It is getting older cars that I didn't feel were taken care of and fixing them.

"To me it is like I am saving them."

He has been considering the possibility of going into the military or to a trade school after high school. Kestner expressed an interest in possibly working in aircraft mechanics. He is already getting college credit for some of the auto mechanic courses he is doing at the WCTC.

He is still interested in possibly playing in band at a trade school. The lifeguard training shows him being able to do first aid.

All of these things show he has developed skills and responsibilities in different fields and shows he can be committed to a program and know how to follow through with his responsibilities.

"It can show how I would be able to keep a job and show that I am not just skipping around," Kestner said.

Brett Dunlap can be reached at bdunlap@newsandsentinel.com

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