By Elaine Gu

Gargoyle staff reporter

Posted Thursday, April 26, 2007, The OG, features

SOPHOMORE ISAAC CHAMBERS: ambitious, vocal, and always on the move. How ambitious? Well, his main project for next year is to rebuild Uni. (For more about that, see below.) Last year, he successfully organized Uni's first freshman class field trip — a three-day stay at Allerton Park during the school week — even though he wasn't a class officer. This year, as class president, he originated the idea of Class Wars, which debuted this month, and he organized a trip to Six Flags St. Louis for the sophomores, which took place Saturday.

In addition to his organization skills, Chambers is also quite an athlete. He competed in gymnastics in elementary school and is currently a member of the Uni High track team. He and his 3,200-meter relay teammates placed fifth in the state at the Illinois Prep Top Times Indoor Classic in late March. They are on pace to qualify for the IHSA outdoor state finals in May.

Chambers is also an expert in photography. In February he won the youth division and placed fourth overall in the 2007 Best in Show Photographic Print Contest co-sponsored by The News-Gazette, the Urbana Park District, and the Champaign County Camera Club.

Find out more about Isaac and his future projects in this interview with the Gargoyle.

Sophomore Isaac Chambers on the move in

a dual meet against Unity High on Tuesday.

(Gargoyle photo) (click to enlarge)

How did you come up with the idea for Class Wars?

Contrary to popular belief, I did not get it from Harry Potter. I thought to myself, Gordon [Ruan] is like a chess master, so as long as we have a chess competition in the mix, our class has it in the bag. No, actually I just thought it would be a fun thing to do throughout the year as an occasional break from the usual. Instead, [Student Council] decided to have all of Class Wars within one month.

So how has it gone so far?

On the whole, the events were pretty poorly organized, but it hasn't been a failure. The eating contest was pretty funny, without a doubt the highlight so far.

Who are the judges for the events?

Teachers, for the most part, although there was some talk about using Unique as a judge for some contests. The judges for each event are up to the class officers who are sponsoring that event.

What are some of your favorite activities?

Listening to music, running, biking, boating, ultimate Frisbee, watching movies (but I don't like watching TV), traveling, relaxing, [riding] roller coasters, photography, and doing something new.

How did you first become interested in photography?

To tell you the truth, I don't really know. I had a film camera from a pretty early age but I literally never took pictures with it. I got a digital camera for my birthday around 1998. I guess it just came to me.

What's your view of photography?

Photography's all about living a moment that's worth saving.

Last year you organized the Allerton trip for the freshmen class. As class president this year, are you and the other class officers (Natsuki Nakamura and Alan Liang) planning anything for the sophomore class?

Natsuki, Alan, and I have focused on fundraising this year so next year's prom will be awesome, and so we can do something really cool for [our] senior trip. After expenses, we made a profit of about $600 at winter formal this year.

[For the Six Flags trip] we managed to get the cost down so it's cheaper per person and our class doesn't lose any money.

I heard you're doing an independent study next year to rebuild Uni. Can you describe your ideas?

Sure. Basically, the goal of the independent study is to replace the facilities on the block other than the main Uni building with a new building. I think it's important to keep the main Uni building because it's the identity and history of the school.

The project will entail the designing of the new building, working with an architect to create the building plan, and raising funds for the new building through major donors, funding from the University, and contributions from the Uni community. This project isn't proof-of-concept; I actually want to get it done.

What facilities will this new building offer?

Some of the things that could be in this new facility are: an auditorium, gymnasium, indoor track, weight room, faculty offices, study areas/lounge, underground parking, classrooms (possibly tech rooms with lecture-style seating), etc.

I am also looking at building a space for a food vendor like Panera or Starbucks to rent. It would be in the same physical building, but for security purposes, not connected to the remainder of the building. According to my research, we could get up to $350,000 a year from a food vendor renting space from us.

I'm also not completely ruling out having a pool, but it is very unlikely because of the tremendous cost associated with building and maintaining a pool. I will be conducting a survey to parents, faculty, students, and alumni soon to get input and ideas.

Did you use to compete in gymnastics?

Yeah, I did through fifth grade. I got third place all around in the USAG Illinois Sate meet one year and first place all around in the Indy classic. But then I broke my arm in fourth grade [and] got a bone infection exactly one year later, 365 days to the date.

How did you break your arm?

I wasn't doing anything difficult. That's probably the worst part about it. I was doing a forward roll on the rings and I didn't have the right grip, so I fell about eight feet and my arm hit the mat at a weird angle, and that was it. I remember asking the paramedic if it was broken. My arm looked like a crash test dummy ran into a wall at 90 miles an hour and all the paramedic said was, “We don't know, we'll have to do some X-rays.” I think my elbow fractured in 29 places. [The doctors] tried to set it but they couldn't, so they had to do surgery. I don't remember much after the surgery except puking about 25 times throughout the night.

So what convinced you to quit gymnastics?

There were other sports I wanted to do: cross country and tae kwon do, and gymnastics is a huge time commitment. Usually I'd be in the gym 15 hours a week. And then there's always the fact that gymnastics is a somewhat dangerous sport. You're not actually very likely to have a serious injury, but you get a lot of small injuries.

In three words, how would you describe yourself?

Intense. I don't have any other words.

RELATED

— Gargoyle coverage: Another first for Class of 2009: A trip to Six Flags

— Gargoyle coverage: Relay teams run season bests at Indoor Classic

— Gargoyle coverage: Chambers wins youth category in photography contest

— Gargoyle coverage: Class Wars: What's it all about?

— Gargoyle coverage: First person: All about Allerton