Throwback: November 28, 2024

(From the Nov. 26, 1999 issue of The Kansas City Jewish Chronicle)

Many 18-year-olds don’t know where they want to go to college or more specifically what they want to do when “they grow up.’! That’s not the case with Justin Katz, the Jewish Chronicle’s Salute to Youth honoree for November. He’s already been accepted to the University of Indiana and plans to major in business and/or accounting.

Justin is well on his way to launching a career in the business world. The Blue Valley North· senior has secured a business internship at the Bank of Blue Valley, where he works five afternoons a week as a teller.

“We take a three-credit-class where we do projects relating to business. We did a brochure and we learned how to ask for raises and things like that,” Justin said.

He starts working during the school’s seventh hour. Justin got the same training as anyone else who was hired to be a teller, and performs the dame duties as the other, and older, bank employees. He earns credit and gets paid is well.

The job is a lot of pressure but Justin likes it.

“I didn’t realize how much money goes through a bank. People do some weird things. I learn a lot every day about people in general. The people are definitely interesting,” Justin said.

“There’s definitely a lot of facets to the job and I like it,” he continued. “There’s a lot of pressure to do it right and do it quickly.”

One of the things he thinks set him apart from the other seniors, and may have helped him obtain the bank job, was his score on a state-wide accounting test.

“I got an accounting award. It was an Emporia State scholarship contest. I got an honorable· mention, which means I was in the top 10 percent in the state in accounting,” Justin said.

Since he’s good at accounting, he thinks that’s what he may want to do later in life. “I’m more interested in the guts of accounting, like finding out how people can make more profit in their business. I’m more interested in that than the day-to-day accounting, but I know you have to understand the day-to-day to do the business processing,” Justin said.

If he doesn’t become an accountant, he may want to do something in sales. “I love to sell, that’s part of the reason why I like being a teller. I get to interact with people all day and I get to talk to people to see what their lives are like. It’s pretty interesting. You get all kinds of people that come in,” Justin said.

Justin not only likes meeting people, he interacts with them well. Just ask Patti Kroll, the education director of the Family Education Center for Conservative Education, where Justin served as a madrich.

“The kids love him. He has good kid instincts and he is a wonderful role model,” said Kroll. “He is a hard worker and was very faithful about being here when he was supposed to. Since he has a job this year, we really miss him. He’d a good, wholesome nice young man.”

Justin worked as a madrich to complete a community service requirement for the National Honor Society.

When he completed his required service hours, he stayed with it.

“It was a lot of fun. The kids are great. I love them, they are so funny,” Justin said.

As a young Jewish person, Justin knows that his younger brother, David, looks up to him as a role model. He thinks his third-grade students may have also.

“I’ve got a feeling that those kids admired me. I really enjoyed that because they looked up to me and I had fun with them,” Justin said.

When he goes away to school next year, he plans to join a Jewish fraternity.

“I also know that Hillel is big there. I might get involved in that a little bit and go to High Holiday services there,” he said.

Justin is involved in several extracurricular activities at school including investment club and advanced debate. He’s a member of AZA #2 of the B’nai B’rith Youth Organization and a member of Beth Shalom’s USY chapter.

This weekend he’s attending the region’s annual Kinnus in Minnesota.

“I’ve gone every year because all my Israel friends are from Minneapolis,” Justin said.

He took a USY trip to Israel the summer before his junior year. He said the experience was “amazing.”

He noticed many similarities among Jewish people, especially when he attended oneg Shabbats in the Jewish State.

“Just listening to people talk it’s the same old thing. They gossip, they talk about food and how wonderful the Bar Mitzvah was,” Justin said. “I liked everything about the trip. Everything we did was fun.”

Somehow he also manages to find time to play on a recently established club lacrosse team.

“The practices begin at 4:45 and when you work at a bank, you don’t actually get off at 5 o’clock. I usually get out of there by about 5:15 and now that it’s dark, I don’t get to practice as much as much as I did before Daylight Savings Time,” Justin said. “It’s a spring sport and most of the games will be on the weekends. It’s not exactly a Midwestern sport, it’s more of an eastern sport. There will be a lot of trips to St. Louis.”

What’s the sport he loves the most? BBYO football.

“It’s fun. I love lacrosse too. But BBYO football is a little more laid back.”

Read the full story from The Kansas City Jewish Chronicle