Nate Reineck, senior
The Galloway School
Nate Reineck was walking down a school hallway one day last Spring when he noticed a French teacher was having difficulty breathing.
Reineck, a senior at The Galloway School, performed the Heimlich maneuver, a technique he learned while lifeguarding over the summer, and extracted a piece of bread that had lodged in the teacher’s throat.
“For a moment, I thought that I was going to die right there,” Galloway teacher Ouali Ferrani said. “Nate is a real lifesaver and for that, I will be grateful to him all my life.”
When he’s not busy saving lives, Reineck keeps busy rowing six days a week with the Atlanta Junior Rowing Club and breaking trail records with his fellow Boy Scouts in Troop 467, all while maintaining a 3.2 grade point average.
Reineck owes the majority of his loss of free time to crew, a sport which he took up in the eighth grade after he and a friend noticed the team rowing on the Chattahoochee River and thought it “looked like a fun time.”
He quickly fell in love with the sport, and since has excelled. In the light weight division, his boat placed first in the local Head of the Hooch regatta, third and fourth in the southeast region and 57th in the Head of the Charles Regatta in Boston, the world’s second largest regatta, which boasts 300,000 spectators and 8,000 rowers from around the world.
“Rowing definitely takes up my life, but it’s what I love to do,” said Reineck. “It actually helps me balance my time, because it gives me a focus. When I get home, I know I need to get down to work. In the winter season when I don’t have practice as much, I find it harder to concentrate.”
Reineck’s focus extends from the Chattahoochee River to the Silver Lake Walking trail in Brookhaven, where he built a bridge for his Eagle Project last fall. Reineck has been involved in scouting for 11 years, and he is scheduled to receive his Eagle rank in a ceremony on April 10. He and his troop have set multiple hiking records in North Carolina, hiking 54 miles in three days and 100 miles in five days.
“I have no free time between school, crew and Eagle scouts,” said Reineck laughing. “But, I like it that way. I don’t feel like I’m accomplishing anything if I’m not constantly doing something and giving it my all.”
What’s Next:
While he has not yet committed, Reineck plans to attend Virginia Tech next school year. He hopes to study either architectural, structural or chemical engineering. And, while he plans on taking at least a year off from the sport which has defined him for the past five years, don’t plan on him getting lazy.
“I’d like to try some new sports over there,” said Reineck. “I want to get involved in canoeing, kayaking, hiking — anything mountaineering like that. I know I still need to be busy there to feel like I’m succeeding.”