12: Interview- Colonel Merkel

Colonel Kenneth Merkel has been the JROTC teacher at Piper High School for two years. He graduated from Tallahassee High School, and attended Florida State University. Colonel Merkel obtained his masters degree from the University of South Florida. He is married and has three children; two boys and one girl. His oldest is twenty-one and attends Florida International University. His seventeen year old son and fourteen year old daughter both attend Everglades High School.
Colonel Merkel served in the military for twenty-three years. While in the military, he had the opportunity to travel the world. He visited places such as, El Salvador, Honduras, Korea, Japan, Germany, United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Bosnia, and Ethiopia, realizing that there was no better place than the United States of America. At the age of forty-three, he decided that he wanted to retire from the military and take up the role of helping teenagers achieve their goals by becoming a school teacher.
He came to Piper High School because there was a vacancy and he looked forward to taking the ROTC program to the next level. He intended to do this by setting goals for his students; a) graduate high school b) pursue either college or a location interested in c) not to give up once they have reached their goal. He loves seeing and appreciating the student’s reactions when they grasp the concept or idea of the lesson that he is teaching. Colonel Merkel feels that technology plays a big role in school. Technology facilitates in planning lessons, maintaining records for the students and teachers, students learn to use the technology and it prepares them for life.
If Colonel Merkel was not able to teach, he would have like to have been either a professional race car driver, an archaeologist or the man who hands out the smiley faces at Wal-Mart.