When I covered the first day of Kindergarten at Betsy Ross School in 2011, I had no idea it would still be relevant in 2024. The teacher was Ms. Jane Mortensen. The student was Curtis Horras. The class project was cutting out a “cookie” from brown construction paper.
When Curtis recently graduated from high school, his Kindergarten cookie was on prominent display. The party’s theme was written on the cookie cake: “You’re one smart cookie, Curtis.” He is a smart cookie indeed. Curtis just graduated from Dowling Catholic H.S. with straight A’s. He will soon be attending Western Illinois University on an athletic scholarship.
Curtis and his family were our across-the-street neighbors on Beloit Avenue for 10 years. We became friends with Jared and Nicole Horras and watched their five kids grow. Curtis was a reporter’s dream. When he wasn’t getting into newsworthy predicaments, he was excelling at soccer for the FPYSA.
His first adventure involved playing Frisbee at The Park. The disc landed on the baseball diamond. When Curtis walked to retrieve it, he sank in the “quicksand” of the infield. The 8-year-old had to be rescued by park employees wearing firemen boots. Curtis was yanked from the mud and got a thrill of a ride home on a golf cart.
His next adventure involved a rope swing his parents rigged in the backyard. The swing wasn’t high enough to satisfy a daredevil like Curtis. He was tying it to a higher branch when he fell and got his right leg caught in the rope. Curtis was hanging upside down when his younger sister notified Nicole.
She tried without success to free Curtis. Then she sheepishly called the Forest Park Fire Department. “This is really silly but my son’s stuck in a tree.” The fire truck arrived and four firemen used their ladder to free him.
Curtis’ adventures were becoming a weekly feature in the “Review.” Not to be outdone, his sister, Samantha Apraham, became a Review reporter. The 12-year-old teamed with her contemporary, Keegan Brown, to cover Little League and FPYSA games.
In 2013, they covered a season of baseball and soccer games. Sam supplied the game facts, while Keegan took the photos. They were paid and their stories appeared on the newspaper’s back page. They were also guest speakers at my college French class. They each gave PowerPoint presentations about the products they were promoting.
In response, I received an email from my boss in Paris. He had heard about Sam and Keegan’s class presentation. He declared there wasn’t a 12-year-old in France with the confidence to pull off such a performance. Meanwhile, Nicole also proved to be newsworthy.
She was the driving force behind a block party on Beloit. It was in 2017 and was only the third block party in the last 30 years. It helped that then-commissioner, Rory Hoskins, lived on the neighboring block and made it a celebration for the 1000 and 1100 blocks of Beloit.
The Horras family were our neighbors for 10 years. In January 2020, they moved to West Des Moines, Iowa. Nicole kept her remote job working for an Oak Park firm. Jared works for a nonprofit called Meals from the Heartland, which supplies 240 million meals around the world.
It was a good move for the family but they still miss Forest Park. Sam, 21, has done mission work overseas and is now a stay-at-home mom for her daughter, Harper. Curtis, 18, is 6-feet-1, 165 pounds with breakaway speed.
Ms. Mortensen should be proud of how one of her “smart cookies” has thrived.