TROY REZACHEK

Troy is a guy I met in 5th grade. We shared Miss Krause together.

Troy and I always got along. It surprises me a bit, now that I think about it. Troy was kind of a tough kid. He didn't seem like a big bully. But he seemed like a guy who could take care of himself if you messed with him.

In the spring of 5th grade, I was hanging around Chad Daffner a lot. I'd ride my bike to school. And every morning, we would ride over to Troy's house, and more-or-less pick him up too. Troy had his own bike of course. Soemtimes Doug Wall would ride on the back of mine.

As the years rolled on, Troy and I didn't have much contact with each other. We never had any mutual friends. If I'm not mistaken, during the day of the 8th grade picnic, I think Troy brought his boombox to school. Troy and myself (as well as several others) found ourselves banished from the picnic for having multiple suspensions or in-school suspensions during the year. We spent a good portion of the day in Mr. Franke's room. And he let us listen to music, while he babysat us. Now that I think about it, could it have been Randy Ertman's boombox? No, I'm sticking with Troy.

I also remember being in detention with Troy, in Mr. Kern's class. Kern started talking about movies, and asked Troy what his favorite was. Troy's answer - "Footloose." Speaking of detentions, Mr. Kern made both Troy and myself stay after shchool on the last day of 8th grade.

See my entries on Mark Gordon and Stacy Erickson for other stories about Troy.

In our freshman year, I had Troy in Mr. Wheeler's science class. We were talking about horror movies one day. He mentioned "The Evil Dead." He said he had it on tape. So I knew full well he had rented it and copied it. He said that he hadn't, insisting that he taped it on cable years earlier. I knew that was bullshit, as that film never appeared on cable. But Troy was apparently worried about revealing his lawbreaking ways I guess.

Dave Svatek told me a rumor (that he'd heard) about Troy. It seems ridiculous to me. But anyway, the rumor was that Troy drank nothing but beer for a long time. And because his body got no nutrients from it, he became dehydrated.

In high school, Troy got the nickname of "razor." I suspect a big part of that was due to his very short hair.

In our senior year, I believe someone reported to Mr. Wood that Troy and Nick Novachek were drinking beer during lunch one day. I think it was those two anyway. For sure, Nick was involved. But it wasn't true. I had Nick in class when he got pulled out, and was asked to breathe on Mr. Wood - who detected no odor of alcohol. Nick was pissed!

I ran into Troy perhaps over 100 times at the video store. He rented quite often. In fact, there's probably no other classmate I saw more than him. He was always friendly with me, and would flash a smile. But he didn't talk too much. He eventually married a woman named Deana. They have at least one child. Last I knew, Troy worked for Eck Industries.

UPDATE - 7/20/06 - On July 15th, Kevin and I went to visit Troy. His 13-year-old daughter answered the door. Troy lives in the same trailer park As Ken Bartz. The place was immaculate. Troy mentioned that shortly after high school, he shared an apartment with fellow graduate, Robin Richmond. After giving us a soda, the four of us posed for some pictures on his deck. You can see them below.