By Jenna Baker, Natalie Hanna, & Karma Paez

Students often have many activities and extracurriculars that they participate in outside of their academics at school. Many participate in clubs and sports, hang out with friends, and live their own lives. Especially through social media, we often see these additional aspects of our friends’ and classmates’ lives. However, we don’t often know about or see the lives of our teachers outside of school. Many of us only think about teachers as people who assign homework, grade essays, and prepare lesson plans. But just like the students they teach, teachers take time to participate in their own interests and have very interesting lives outside the classroom.

Cassandra Gonzalez (Math Teacher)
Math teacher Cassandra Gonzalez has a quirky bovine obsession that is almost contagious. Evident from her cow-decorated statistics classroom to the adorable cow tattoo on her ankle, she has had a fascination with cows ever since she could remember and doesn’t plan on ever getting tired of them.

“I would never have my cow tattoo removed,” Gonzalez said.

Even her students know she is obsessed with all things cow-related, often gifting her cow stickers, plush cows, cow mugs, and temporary cow tattoos. But don’t be fooled by her passion for cows, Gonzalez’s passion for Statistics is just as strong.


Graham Mazur (VAPA and Yearbook teacher)
Graham Mazur, well known as the VAPA teacher who advises the Tartan yearbook, has a long history of minor-league baseball. He began playing T-ball in first grade and then started playing professionally after college where he played for five seasons.

Mazur played until his body was unable to play again, and has not played since 2007, although he did throw batting practice once for GHC about five years ago.

“In the middle of the night, I still have dreams that I will go back to college and play for my team,” Mazur said.

Brandon Makovy (Math Teacher)
Math teacher Brandon Makovy goes from captivating audiences with his roles in shows and movies to solving quadratic equations. He went from small market movies and commercials in Houston to booking his first role on a TV show in Los Angeles only one year after moving here.
Makovy has played roles in “Deadwood: The Movie,” “Dr. Ken,” “Pitch,” “The Comedy Get Down,” “Criminal Minds” and more.

“There were times when I’d be doing a scene that made some of the funniest guys on the planet laugh,” Makovy said. “When I made people like George Lopez laugh and break out of character, that was a really cool feeling.”

Ronald Korb (History Teacher)
Social science teacher Ronald Korb not only teaches history but has also made some himself. Through his love of rowing, Korb has been able to travel the world. He competed internationally in high school, on the under-19 national team, and competed in the world championship in Sweden.
While competing in a race representing the U.S., he rowed against the Soviet Union and Germany. At Northeastern University, he spent three years on the first varsity team.

“The confidence gained while rowing was really nice since I was rowing early on before the fall of the Soviet Union,” Korb said. “I remember being at the start of a race, representing the USA and having the Soviet Union on one side and East Germany on the other. Those are pretty powerful memories when thinking back, especially as a history teacher.”

Erica Brauer (Science Teacher)
Science teacher Erica Brauer uses both the right and left sides of her brain by specializing in not only science but also community theater. Brauer participates in a theater company that performs both plays and musicals. Her passion for acting sprouted from her love of theater in her childhood. Theater helped Brauer with both reading and coming out of her shell as a child. After getting her Bachelor of Science (BS) in Biology, Brauer took a pause on her science journey and sought to pursue an acting career until realized she still had a love for science.

“I tend to find that if you want to be an actor, you shouldn’t be a director because if you still want to be the part, then it’s harder to direct the part,” Brauer said.