More than meets the eye: Senior Christian Hogan
Photo courtesy Christian Hogan
Senior Christian Hogan and his brothers dress up for the ‘formal night’ during a cruise to Cozumel. They were going to see the Mayapan ruins. “Formal night is where everyone on the cruise is assigned specific dining rooms,” Hogan said. “You dress up and look all fancy for dinner. The staff do a show too. Overall a fantastic experience.”
Baseball, basketball, cooking, computers, YouTube, Photoshop. The one person all of these have in common is senior Christian Hogan.
“My biggest goal is to be successful,” Hogan said. “There’s a lot I want to do. I want to do YouTube, work on computers, and I do stuff with Photoshop. I like technology and do a lot of that.”
After he graduates, Hogan hopes to attend WSU Tech to become a Robotic Engineer.
“I’m going to work to try to go to college,” Christian said. “I’ll do YouTube and work, but if YouTube takes off, I’m going to do that. I have a friend that goes to WSU; he’s giving me some referrals, and I’m figuring it out as I go”
As his dad, Gabriel Hogan, said, Christian has continued to succeed, specifically in his passions, despite a significant issue concerning his thumb on his right hand, which has caused him to undergo several surgeries.
“I don’t think you can talk about Christian without using the word courage,” Gabriel said. “Many people may have found it crippling to have an issue with their dominant hand. It takes a lot to overcome a difficulty like that and try to have a normal life, but it takes an extraordinary amount of courage to excel at life despite the issue.”
Gabriel is not the only one who sees the fearlessness in Christian’s personality.
“He has more courage than one person should be allowed to have,” Christian’s mom, Amber Harp said. “There isn’t a single amusement ride or roller coaster he won’t get on. He’s grown into an amazing young man that I am very proud of.”
Even as a child, these traits showed a level of maturity that his parents thought were beyond his age.
“Christian has always been a very deliberate and considerate person,” Gabriel said. “When it was time to crawl and eventually walk, he would observe his twin brother. Kohl would stumble and fall, like anyone else, but Christian seemed to wait until he seemed to think he was ready, and he was able to skip the stumble and fall part. Though he is a hard worker, he’d rather take a moment and figure out how to work smarter instead of harder.”
Harp also has fond memories of Christian as a child.
“My favorite memory is when he would spend time cooking with me,” Harp said. “For a long time he wanted to be a chef until he found his love of taking electronics apart and putting them back together.”
Christian’s love of technology began in seventh grade, now, his hobbies revolve around that passion.
That passion is one easily spotted by Kohl.
“The man’s a whiz with a computer,” Christian’s twin brother, Kohl Hogan said. “He’s teaching me how to build my own PCs, so I’m learning a lot from him.”
In return, Kohl teaches Christian how to fish, cook and clean up the frogs they catch when frog hunting. Kohl calls it an exchange of knowledge.
On a youth group field trip to Branson, the two became closer as brothers.
“He and I spent the entire time together doing all the rides and stuff,” Kohl said. “We basically agreed on every ride. It was a lot of fun spending a whole day with him.”
When he was younger, Christian played baseball with Kohl for a few years.
“Best memory of Christian as a kid was during a baseball game,” Christian’s stepdad, Brad Harp said. “His brother Kohl had been up to bat and was on base as the winning run. Christian came up to bat, two outs last inning. He hit the ball and drove in Kohl to win the Championship for the team.”
Christian also played youth basketball for several years, most memorably, against other top tier teams who usually ended up beating them. By the end of the season, however, the results had turned around.
“None of these kids could keep Christian from getting the ball,” Gabriel said, “So every timeout I would ask him if he could stay in. He would be panting and say he was fine. Of course, I figured out how to get him rest at times, but that has always stuck with me. We have had so many times that I realize how smart he is or how funny he is or just what a good, overall, person he has become.”
Christian and Kohl both aim to have the same effect on the people they meet.
“We try to make everything as fun as possible,” Kohl said. “We try to make people happy. If you see someone’s upset, then you want to be the person that cheers them up, so we always try to be the funny and happy people.”
The bonds Christian has between his friends is similar to the ones he has with his brothers.
“We act like family,” senior Everett Latimer said. “In fact, some of his family just comes into my house without knocking, and my parents don’t care. I don’t think that’ll change. I think we’ll have the same bond that we’ve always had.”
Even after graduation, Kohl hopes his relationship with his twin does not change.
“I’m sure we’ll keep in good contact,” Kohl said. “Maybe we’ll still have dinner at our mom’s house after we’ve moved out.”
(Photo courtesy Christian Hogan)
At home, Christian has a strong support system within his family and is close to all of them.
“They’re always present,” Christian said. “If I’m doing something someone’s always interested or asking about the subject. We go on a lot of vacations and we just all hangout as we go on to our day to day life. Altogether I’ve got a fantastic family and we’re all close to each other.”
Senior Savannah Athy-Sedbrook is a fourth-year reporter for The Oriole. She can often be found running around during ace to complete stories, as well as...
