MARK CIHA

Mark Ciha was with me at Magee, Clarke and Washington. My first experience with him came from either 4th or 5th grade. My friend Chris Storlie mentioned to me that Mark wanted to beat him up, due to the fact that Chris had called him "a fat tub of lard." Mark was somewhat of a big guy.

Over the years, Mark seemed to have total disdain for me. I never understood why. I never did anything to him. But he always acted like such a prick towards me. Maybe he was that way with everyone. I don't know.

In our junior year of high school, Mark and I had some mutual friends - or at least "friendlys." Dave Svatek would occasionally give Mark a ride home. Since I was a regular passenger also, our paths did cross. I'm sure Mark was thrilled.

During the winter of our senior year, we had an enormous number of snow days. We'd get a few inches, and the school would announce they were shutting down for the day. Complaints? Not from me! Although I do recall Mrs. Kluczinski bitching about the high humber of days. Whatever. Anyway, on this day, a bunch of us piled into Dave's ancient station wagon. We were having some difficulty getting through the snow. At one point, Mark told Dave that he was hooked onto Brad Strouf's car. But he said it so calmly, as if it were a joke. Dave finally got the wheels to stop spinning, and inched forward - with a heavy load. No, the heavy load wasn't Mark. It was in fact Brad's little blue Chevette. Somehow the cars got hooked together on the side. Mark simply said, "I told you so."

Later on that year, I was desperate for a ride home one day. Dave wasn't around. So I asked Brad. But he was without a vehicle that day as well, saying that Mark was driving him home. So I sheepishly asked Mark if I could tag along. Mark somewhat shook his head no, but basically ignored me. I was pretty much insignifigant to Mark. I ended up walking that day.

If memory serves, Mark had a small, thin ponytail-type thing on the back of his hair. How cute.

I think in our junior year, Mark purchased a motorcycle.

After high school, I don't think I ever ran into Mark again. I'm sure both of us were happy about that. Eventually he got married to a woman named Heidi. To my knowledge, they have two kids. Based on the names of those two kids, I suspect Mark may be a fan of Aerosmith - or at least a fan of the lead singer. A few years back, Mark was a schoolteacher in Mayville. But now he teaches in Iowa. A found the recent photo of him below.



UPDATE - 4/13/06 - Mark provided some family photos. You can see them below.







UPDATE - 8/16/06 - Mark wanted to share some photos of his hunting trophies. You can the pictures below. If you have a problem with hunting, then you might not care to look. What you're looking at is Canadian geese, mallards, pintails, a turkey, pheasants, and a couple deer.