Mike Haugen would be a cool science teacher to have. Or at least as cool as a middle school science teacher could be. He’s relatively young at 30. He cares deeply about his students and their lives. He stresses to his kids and their parents that they need the natural stimulation that can be found only outside.
Mike Haugen is the type of impact teacher that, years later when you return from a college break or you’re out in the “real world,” you’d go back to your old school and look him up.
You could say Zach Marion was a typical elementary-aged boy. He loved to play in the creek and look for golf balls that he might be able to sell. He enjoyed having his friends spend the night. He wasn’t a fan of the dark or of scary movies or of green vegetables. He’d get into it every now and then with his older brother Nathan. He was active — he loved skiing and going on camping trips with his family and friends. He even enjoyed going to school at Carpenter Elementary in Overland Park.
At a different time and a different place, Overland Park’s Zach Marion would’ve connected to Denver school teacher Mike Haugen. Although they’ve never really met, in many ways Haugen will have a bond with a deeper impact on the Marion family than most relationships between a teacher and a student.
See, Zach Marion is proof that life isn’t fair.
In May 2004, he was diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia, which is an aggressive cancer of the blood and bone marrow. According to the National Marrow Donor Program Web site, children make up less than 10 percent of the approximately 12,000 people who are diagnosed with AML each year. The average age is 65. Zach Marion was 11.
Zach fought through four rounds of chemotherapy and several surgeries over the next seven months in hopes of being able to do those things he loved to do.
At one point late that summer, after the second round of chemo, it looked like the cancer was in remission. But Zach and his family found out in September that it wasn’t. He’d have to go through more chemo. His mother Sara told him then that it was just a bump in the road to recovery. Zach disagreed. He said it was more like Mount Everest. He was right.
Three months later, on Dec. 16, 2004, Zach Marion’s body quit fighting.
A year or two after Zach’s death, Bill and Sara Marion thought it would be appropriate if some of their son’s ashes could be scattered at the top of Mount Everest. That’s where Mike Haugen comes in.
In addition to teaching at Kepner Middle School in Denver, Haugen’s other passion is rock climbing and mountaineering, which he’s been doing for 15 years. In recent years, working for International Mountain Guides, he’s spent his summers guiding in Washington and Alaska.
This summer was going to be a little different. Haugen and one of his best friends since high school, Casey Grom, who’s a Senior Guide with Rainier Mountaineering, Inc., decided to climb the most intimidating mountain of all, Mount Everest.
It started off as a personal challenge they wanted to accomplish. Then, the Coleman Company, which Haugen has worked for during the past two years as a spokesperson, product tester and product designer, sponsored the trip as a way for Haugen and Grom to test the company’s Exponent line. Additionally, Coleman began a “5.5 Challenge” (5.5 representing Everest’s height in miles) for children to get involved through a virtual climb at their schools and track the group’s progress on Everest.
“That alone meant a lot to us because our message is that we need to get kids outside more,” said Haugen. “This grew to more than just an endeavor that Casey and I wanted to take on because we knew the kids would be tracking us.”
Of course, one more component was added. In mid-March, about two weeks before Haugen left Denver for Katmandu, he got an e-mail from someone at the Dream Factory with the request from the Marion family.
“Mike was the perfect person to take Zach on his Mount Everest quest!” Sara Marion wrote to me in an e-mail. “We couldn't have asked for a better person. Everything about Mike seemed right, especially that he is a teacher and seems to really connect (to) and care about his kids, and motivates them to do their best.
“I know this was an adventure of a lifetime for Mike and his friend Casey so they didn't have to complicate things by agreeing to our request.”
But, without giving it a second thought, they agreed.
“I couldn’t imagine not doing it for them,” Haugen, who lived briefly in the Kansas City area in the late 1980s and attended Blue Valley Middle School, said by phone. “It seemed like the least I could do. I was honored that they asked.”
To show you what kind of a person Mike Haugen is, instead of just agreeing to take some of Zach’s ashes on the climb, Zach became an honorary member of the team, with his photo and bio listed alongside Mike and Casey’s on Coleman’s Web site.
Throughout the two months of the climb, Zach Marion, indeed, was a member of the team. When things got rough, Haugen thought about Zach and his battle with leukemia. It helped Haugen “put things in perspective.” It gave him additional inspiration.
Finally, around 4:30 on the morning of May 21, Mike Haugen, Casey Grom and Zach Marion reached the summit of Mount Everest. During their hour or so on top of the world, Mike took in the magnificent sun-filled view, thought about what the climb meant to him personally and to Casey. He thought again about Zach and then left his ashes.
“For us to climb Everest,” Haugen said, “we chose our hardship, we chose our suffering. I can’t even imagine what Zach went through in his struggle with leukemia. It was touching to take a student’s, a young person’s, ashes up there. It definitely means a lot to us to do that for the family. I hope we handled it the right way and did everything we could do for them.”
With the exception of having to save a woman from another expedition on their descent, the team’s climb was nearly perfect. Unlike some of the horror stories from climbers who suffer through horrendous weather conditions, Haugen says the weather was tolerable most days. The majority of us will never know what it means to fight the elements and the altitude, not to mention the mountain itself, to experience the exhilaration Haugen and Grom experienced on Mount Everest.
Without suffering through it, there’s no way to understand the pain and sorrow that Bill, Sara and Nathan Marion have felt for the past few years with the loss of Zach. But the heartbreak is a little easier to manage with someone like Mike Haugen who was willing to do something for a family he had never heard of.
“I don't think the ‘healing’ process will ever really be over,” Sara wrote, “but Zach’s Mount Everest climb (with Mike and Casey) had a huge impact on us.”
“Behind the Stats” runs each Thursday. Be sure to catch Matt Fulks on the “Behind the Stats” radio show, live at Chappell’s Restaurant in North Kansas City, co-hosted with Dave O’Hara, each Thursday night from 6-7 p.m. on 1140-AM and 1160-AM. To contact Matt, visit mattfulks.com.