MIKE HAUB

I was born in Osceola on November 15, 1977 to my parents John and Debbie Haub.  I have one brother, Danny, two years younger than I (who always started every confrontation we ever had!!).  We were raised on a farm south of Osceola.  Farming in southern Iowa is often not a lucrative business and Mom supplemented the income by working at Casey’s, then Conoco, and presently at Clarke County Extension Service.  She supervises a government program wherein care providers for children, adults or the mentally challenged can be reimbursed for serving healthy snacks and meals.

I consider that all of this has been to my advantage. From living on a farm I learned a lot about hard work.  Because of Mom’s employment, I was expected to help around the house when a lot of kids my age didn't have to.  Usually no one was home when my brother and I got home.  I was a "latch key kid", that for many people has negative connotations, but it was part of what made me take responsibility for my own life. It made me grow up sooner than some others because I had to take care of myself and someone else.

I also had the privilege of having not only a loving father and mother, but an extended family.  They have always been really involved in my life. All three sets of grandparents and step­ grandparents live in Boone and they would come for birthdays and holidays. Grandpa Haub and Dad redid our house. They renovated an old farm house. My grandpa helped me learn to walk. He always had a toothpick in his mouth. One day I was reaching for it and he wiggled it in his mouth and made me walk after it. He loves to tell that story! Grandpa also taught us how to dunk our cookies and make cookies with bread and a glass.

In summary, the extended family helped raise us and was really involved in our lives. They always wanted to know what was going on and praised us for everything we did. When we were in Christmas pageants or music concerts, they always came.  It is my opinion that a good family is one of the most important influences for children.

My first school experience was in Head Start, when I was four or five.  I consider this a very helpful program because children learn to interact with other children.  They probably have had other playmates prior to that time but no structured activity; and, at least in my case, Head Start taught me how to relate even to children I didn't like.  In kindergarten, the teachers have little time to teach social skills so it is good to know those ahead of time.

I also went to Sunday school and Bible School. I really liked Bible School because we had treats.  I was in the choir for young kids.  Martha White was the director - I remember her especially.  That was when I began realizing that I liked to sing.  Sheila Kentner was one of the Sunday school teachers that I remember, along with Ross Frahm and Lane Eddy.

But a giant step in my spiritual growth was due to Rev. Judy Miller.  She really related to young people through the youth group and with young married couples.  We became so close to her.  During our meetings we would pick controversial topics to discuss - homosexuality, assisted suicide, and capital punishment, for examples.  She wanted us to know what the church's stand was and, even if we disagreed, that was all right.  With Judy nothing was off-limits to talk about. We grew so close that it was really hard on us when she left.  We felt like we were losing a true friend.

I remember particularly a sermon she gave on Fathers' Day.  It was a powerful sermon that I agreed with completely.  She talked about how men are needed to take a stronger role in family life than providing food and shelter.  Fathers have a lot of love to give that the family needs to receive.  That is something I regard as very important!  Men should become emotionally involved with the family.  Many of us talked afterward about that sermon because it struck a chord with lots of people.

Probably my saddest time with Judy was her last day at church.  Jamie Tokheim, Bryan Lloyd, Dennis Cole, Jeanne Lundquist, and I surprised Judy by singing a song.  She was all ready to give her sermon and we interrupted her with "Maybe Someday We'll Meet Again."  I don't think any of us got all the way through it.  One started crying and that set off the rest of us. Music was important to Judy and this was our way of saying "we love you and you are really important to us.”  It was really sad for me, personally, and for the whole congregation.

In elementary school the teacher whom I remember best was my 4th grade teacher, Ms. Esther Korporal. It is true for lots of elementary school kids, but, undoubtedly due to the influence of Ms. Corporal, when I was in 4th grade I  decided I wanted to be an elementary school teacher.   She was always interested in and made us think about goals and how we would get there. Her family was from Germany and she helped us broaden our world views.  In her class we did a rain forest, a project that took us three or four weeks to accomplish.  We brought in leaves and other samples of nature.  We tore the whole room apart, and, through the chaos, learned a lot.

For a while I wanted to be a writer, which Ms. Korporal also encouraged.  Peggy Peterson was very gifted and she and I would write and then read our creations in class.  It was quite a competition.  Ms. Korporal wanted us to pursue that avocation.  She wrote, and she did her journal in German so she would remember her heritage, which always intrigued me about other cultures.

I liked school- well, no one really likes school.  I always felt there were things I wanted to accomplish and be successful.  I haven't even yet decided what success is (I'm sure it has little to do with money); but I always thought school was very important, especially when I got into high school.  I was still in the process of deciding what I wanted to do.  I still wanted to help people, which had motivated me and a lot of my friends who wanted to be elementary teachers when we were younger.  By the time we entered high school we realized that not everybody can be teachers.  It was then that I got really involved in extra-curricular activities, but I really loved acting and choir.  I began to lean that direction.

The fact is, I was involved in everything. If there was an organization, I probably was in it and found that I could work well with people.  I discovered that quite a few people didn't want to take responsibility, but I would and therefore held lots of offices.  I seemed to get along well with the teachers.  I understood they were people, too; and, contrary to some opinions, they weren't monsters determined to flunk us.

My best high school experience of all was when we did Godspell.  I hadn't thought I wanted to do it because I didn't think I could act well. Mr. Brad Lampe talked me into it.  I kept telling him I didn't think I could but he had confidence in me.  I tried out thinking I could take some small part, but then, loving challenges, I decided to go for it and tried out for and got the part of Jesus.  That scared me to death!

Not surprisingly, many had already made up their minds about how Jesus would behave. Miss Ann March had a different idea about Jesus than Mr. Ray Russell who didn't want to do the play when he first read it.  He thought it was almost sacrilegious. Others, also, had a problem with thinking of Jesus light-heartedly, which is a loose interpretation of how Jesus was portrayed. To do justice to the play, you had to get inside the heads of those that followed Jesus, and understand how they must have felt.

It turned out to be a lot of fun and affected a lot of people.  I know it was just a play but it helped me with my spiritual growth. The whole second act - Jesus being betrayed, deserted and crucified- the song, "On the Willows" sung by Mr. Dave Helgeson- was incredibly moving. The first time we heard that song, which is about Jesus saying goodbye to his disciples, we all cried, now understanding the disciples' emotions. Even the nights of the show we felt that sadness.  We were all acting, but we all felt a personal connection to this story line.  We worked so hard- sometimes we were rehearsing until 10:30 or later at night, but we didn't care because we wanted so much for the show to be good.

The first performance was on a cold and rainy night.  We didn't think anybody would come.  We peeked into the gym and found a full house.  When we started performing, we could feel the intensity with which the crowd watched us.  There was one moment I will never forget: Courtney Taylor had spoken her line to me but, just before I answered, there was a clap of thunder.  The timing was eerie!  I was so taken aback that it took me a bit to answer.

After the performances, people who came up to congratulate us were crying.  They had been on the edge of their seats for all that time.  They knew what was going to happen and yet they didn't know how much it would affect them.

The Godspell performance played for three very exhausting nights.  We had a staff party after the last show and, among other things, we watched it on tape. That whole experience was probably my favorite memory from high school, as may be true for others as well.  The day after the party there were only two or three of us at school.  Everybody was sick. We had even sacrificed our own health.

I graduated in May, 1996, and went on to Drake University in the pharmacy program. This resulted from my sophomore year when I decided to quit sports and begin working in order to have my own income. I had been pretty much self-supporting, but now I was on my way to adulthood and wanted to buy a car.  I had taken my resume' around town and could have gotten a job at Hy-Vee or one of the fast food places. I had also submitted my resume' to Roger Kentner at Osceola Drug.  He had talked to my mom saying that it was possible that Kris Wieck would be leaving and they would need some after-school help.  I thought that sounded like a good place to work. Roger and the other people working there had always been very nice to me.

I was hired and had a blast.  I heard other kids complain about their jobs and I always felt guilty because I really liked my job when no one else liked theirs.  I had worked there about a year when people began asking if would like to become a pharmacist. No, I thought not.  I still had my mind on helping people and I thought of pharmacy as just handing out pills. Then one day I was in the back of the store, in the pharmacy section, and heard Roger helping people.  He was affecting people and their lives.  It wasn't just a job; he really cared about them.  I began to think that I should give more consideration to this profession as a way to help people.  I have really learned to like it.

By the time I was in my junior year I had decided that I wanted to follow in Roger's footsteps.   That was the same thing that had happened to Roger who followed Bayard (Shad) Shadley.  Roger had become excited about pharmacy, just as was happening to me.

I still work there during breaks and over the summer.  I think pharmacy is a really important profession.  A recent Gallop poll showed that pharmacists are the most trusted of all professionals.  I consider that it is really important that you have an upstanding citizen status and it has become important to me to be considered a professional, while still helping people.

I've always loved challenges.  I've never wanted to take the easy way out, and I have always tried to work harder than others. Pharmacy is not an easy profession.  You have to really work at it and enjoy working with all types of people.  I challenge myself to do that.  I believe I can be a credit to the profession as a pharmacist.

I have several other goals: I believe, with my knowledge of medicine, I could help those less fortunate than myself. I would like to be a missionary or work with the Peace Corps after I graduate from college.

I know that at some point I would like to go to Broadway.  I love to sing and act and I've always loved musicals.  I've always wanted to go and try, even for some small part.  At least, I could say that I tried.  I don't want to get to be 60 years old someday and have regrets that I didn't try.

I also love to travel.  Last summer (1996) I went to Europe with the Iowa Ambassadors of Music.  Applicants had to be nominated by their music instructors and then auditions were held. About 400-450 were accepted.  We were gone for about three weeks and performed in England, France, Switzerland, Austria, Liechtenstein, and Germany.

My favorite country was Switzerland.  Everywhere you are surrounded by the majestic Swiss Alps.  We performed in one small community and increased their population 100%.   They put up a tent and the whole village came and filled it.  In addition to our performing, they had a polka band and the village people taught us to polka.  They were very friendly and responsive.

The most moving place was Dachau, Germany.  It was the first concentration camp the Nazis set up to exterminate Jews and "war criminals." The fortification blew our minds.  There were trenches around the area, like a moat.  Barbed wire, chain-link fence and concrete walls enclosed the area, with guard towers at least every hundred feet.

What made it seem more horrible was that all around it was beauty.  It was the middle of summer; flowers were blooming, hedges were neatly trimmed, and then, right in the middle, is this terrible, ugly place.  It made your skin crawl because you could feel the tragedy of what happened here, in this very place!  There is a museum with pictures and documents.  There had been people in the town of Dachau who tried to help the Jews escape, but officers caught them and killed everyone.  There were lots of pictures showing this slaughter.

We have come to know that the Nazis had gone into the Jewish ghettos and told the people they were being relocated to better accommodations, so people gathered their most precious family possessions to take with them.  They were told that when they arrived they would be given new shoes and clothing and their luggage would be put on different train cars.  Piles upon piles of shoes and luggage were then rummaged through by guards and left at the train stations.

It took us probably 2 hours to look around.  In another building that was almost like a stable were the furnaces.  We walked inside and here, 50 years later, is still the stench of burning flesh. It is horrendous, really beyond description.  Lots of us were crying.  No one talked.

The next place, Treblinka in Czechoslovakia, had chemical showers.  I don't believe they were ever used.  We saw lots of tombs, a Christian memorial and Jewish monument.  It was really powerful.  A man, probably about 85-years-old, was there.  All his family had been killed there. He has gone every day since the liberation.  Nothing- neither weather nor circumstances- ever prevents his going.  This is his memorial to them.  He will never let anyone forget.  He gave us a face to what had happened. These were real, living, human beings who were subjected to this.  It was the most powerful experience of my entire life. Everything else pales in comparison.

I hope to do more traveling.  I have come to believe that it has a way of expanding our thinking.  This is a huge world full of different cultures and ideas.  It is impossible to learn that without going to other places.  By visiting them you gain respect for the people and insight into their ways.  There is no way even to imagine what other people are going through without first­ hand experience.  We can't isolate ourselves knowing only our American culture.  We haven't really lived to our full capacity until we've experienced the whole world.

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Last Revised May 8, 2012