Meet Mr. Birks

By Annabelle Nigh

This school year we got a new choir teacher. While many people have had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Birks, some have not had the opportunity to. That’s why Media Writing decided to do an additional interview to help our students get to know him better!

Mr. Birks was born at Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio. He grew up in Cleveland Heights. He also attended Cleveland Heights High School and Ohio Northern University. He has taught at St. Gerard Catholic School and West Middle School, both in Lima. Before that, he was a minister and substitute teacher in Wapakoneta. He has 5 kids and 1 boy on the way! He has a 9 year old daughter named Kendra, a 7 year old boy named Hudson, a 5 year old boy named Elias, a 3 year old girl named Naomi, and a 1 year old girl named Zoe. Mr. Birks loves singing, listening to music, reading the Bible, playing party games, and reading choose-your-own-adventure books. He also enjoys a good game of cards with his friends and having tickle-fights with his kids.

1) If you could spend a day with any famous person who would it be?

I love government and politics, so I'd probably want to shadow King Charles or one of the president's staff. Other than that, I tend to not like fame or the famous very much.

2) What did you want to be when you were little?

The President of the United States, a Cruiseship Captain with Disney Cruises, or a High School or College Choir Director. Guess which one I went with?!

3) What's your favorite smell (be specific)?

What a colorful question! There are so many good options that I refuse to give just one. Here is my list: air-conditioning, laundry right out of the dryer, freshly-washed baby, but, more than all the rest, I have to say: meat. Nothing beats the smell of cooking steak.

4) What is the most embarrassing moment in your life?

It was awful. I was in the music lounge at my college and I said something ridiculous as a joke. I dare not tell you what I said, but a friend of mine was secretly recording. She then broke it up into sound bites and would play it from her phone whenever there was a crowd of people we knew. Sometimes I would walk into the building and hear her playing the recording for a room full of people and listen to them laughing loud. LOUD. Over and over again. I was mortified and asked her to stop, but she just played it over my begging. I'm terrified she still has the recording. It's nothing really bad, but it could lose me a Senate race one day if I ever run and it comes out.

5) What do you want put on your gravestone?

"I told you I was sick." Just kidding. Probably the great passage from St. Paul's first letter to the Church in Corinth: "Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?"

6) Do people eat or drink soup?

If eating means consuming solids, then many soups qualify for they have solids in them. If drinking is consuming liquid, then all soups qualify. I would say that soups are necessarily drinkable and conditionally able to be eaten. But, I think we all understand that hearing one say they were drinking soup sounds a bit odd. Why is that? I think it's because the concept of eating is closely associated with having a meal whereas drinking is peripheral to meals. So, to eat soup for dinner makes sense to us, whether it actually involved eating or not, whereas drinking soup for dinner sounds completely stupid and unsatisfying. These are the thoughts that keep me up at night. But a better question is: is cereal a soup? Is a hotdog a sandwich? What came first, the chicken or the egg? Answers: yes, yes, and the chicken, which was formed by God in the Garden of Eden. Can't you read?