LUKE WEINBACH

Senior Spotlight

Hammond student body president, baseball player, singer, and so much more, Luke plays a role in almost everything going on at Hammond.

As president, Luke strives to represent everyone, “[get] to know a lot of people and [be] kind to them,” and, of course, “to make the world a better place ” He wants to make it possible for everyone to be able to patriciate in every activity they want to be a part of and “still enjoy [their] high school experience ”

Luke plays baseball in the springtime, an activity he has been doing for four years, with the most recent years being on the varsity team He has also been in all 7 of Hammond's productions that have taken place while he has been in high school, 4 plays and 3 musicals Last year, Luke starred as Gomez in The Addams Family, and this year, he is starring as Ren McCormack in Footloose In the plays, Luke recently portrayed Mr Tumnus in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and played Mr Green in Clue in 2021 He never thought he would grow up to love performing but was inspired by his brother, Blake ‘21

He recalls how his brother “was put in drama class completely by accident in seventh grade He started acting, and he loved it ” The happy accident wasn’t only lucky for Blake, but also for Luke:

“I was coming to all the shows and watching him, and I saw that this stuff is really cool ” This little bit of serendipity led Luke to join the drama department, and he has no regrets “I would not have it any other way. I absolutely love being in that theatre ” To add, Luke sings year-round in the Select Ensemble and the more exclusive Seven at Seven.

His love of music was manifested during Covid when he joined a band with his brother and best friend, Hap Shull, called Blake Weinbach and the Twins When Luke’s brother graduated, the group found more students to join: Frank Robinson, the band’s drummer, and Evan Todd, the band’s singer The group, formerly the Hap Shull Experience, played at last year’s Dance Marathon and later renamed themselves Forest Drive They recorded their first album this past summer, called Reflections, and played at a charity event for the Jedd Foundation, a suicide prevention organization

On top of his extracurricular endeavors, Luke is also a star in the classroom He was named a National Merit Semifinalist and was later honored as a National Merit Finalist for his performance on standardized tests his junior year He is also a member of the Cum Laude Society, a honor bestowed solely on the top ten percent of the senior class, and served as a junior marshal ast last year's commencement, denoting him as one of the top four students in the class

As of February 3, he has been accepted to the University of South Carolina's Honors College, Georgia Institute of Technology, University of Illinois, and UNC Chapel Hill He received the highest score in the state during his sophomore year for the National Spanish Exam. He explains that Spanish is “historically one of [his] best and one of [his] favorite subjects ” He did a research project with the Astronomy and Physics department of the University of Oklahoma in the summer of 2021 in which he engineered a “pretty cool” quantum scale optical device.

To combine his love of STEM and the humanities, he plans to double major in linguistics and computer science in college He is natural language processing, the way computers understand and use language, where these topics intersect. He isn’t focused on a career, but simply wants to pay attention to the topics that interest him Luke says, “I’m just going to study the things… I want to study and see where it takes me ”

Luke’s advice to the future upper school students of Hammond is “try.” He explains that everyone he knows is capable of “achieving any sort of goal they want The problem is they usually don’t apply themselves ” He suggests to learn and study not because it is useful in your career, but because it’s a valuable asset: “think of it on a more macro level What are you learning about being human?”