The returning champion
Published 6:39 am Monday, March 3, 2008
To learn a lot about the personality of Jason Nolte, play a game of foosball with him. If you visit his home in the Douglas Fir neighborhood, you can do it right in the living room.
If you’re like a Tuesday afternoon visitor to the Nolte home, who has not played foosball in a while, you may find yourself falling behind rapidly. In this game, Jason jumps out to a 9-0 lead before the visitor finally gets one in.
But there would be no great comeback. Final score: Jason Nolte 10, visitor 1.
But you don’t detect any arrogance from him, despite his honed skills. Instead, he quietly jokes about having a “free shot” at the goal.
And once the game is over, and the conversation about him begins, his humble, quiet demeanor is reinforced further.
It’s not that Jason Nolte doesn’t have opportunity or reason to brag. This year marks the second time he’s been the Mill Creek Enterprise’s carrier of the year. He won the honor, as voted on by the readers, in 2002.
Nolte delivers The Enterprise to approximately 50 residents of the Vine Maple neighborhood. During the summer he even mows lawns for a few of his customers.
One tribute to Nolte came courtesy of Hope Chatfield, one of the customers who nominated him for the honor. She wrote: “Jason is consistent, loyal, positive and unfailing in his commitment to deliver the paper. He still takes the time to place the paper face up and forward so that when I open my front door I can immediately read the headline. He’s such a great kid.”
And a focused and busy one too. He’s involved in a variety of activities. He played doubles for Jackson High School’s junior varsity tennis team this past season. He does the sound mixing for the bands at his church, Canyon Hills Community Church in Bothell.
“I was in the sixth grade and the pastor had an item in the bulletin board, so I volunteered for it,” Nolte said. “It’s a technical, but fun thing to do.”
His church figures prominently in his life. This past fall, Nolte visited Chile on a mission with his church. While there, he helped build a soccer field for a church in the town of El Monte, and even got to play a few soccer games in a part of the world where the sport is akin to religion.
“I learned playing soccer is fun,” he said.
He is also an avid gamer, the owner of an Xbox who has tested games for the system at Microsoft.
“Just strategy games,” he said about the kind of games he tested. “Those are the games I like.”
Nolte, currently in ninth grade at Heatherwood Middle School, began delivering The Enterprise in fifth grade, taking over a route from his sister Kristen.
“I wanted to start saving money for college,” Jason said. “I normally don’t spend a lot of money.”
He’s begun investing some of the earnings from his route. He has stock in Microsoft and Disney. It’s all part of his plans for the future. Although he says nothing is definite, he has a sense of where he wants to go.
“All I can think of is to be in business right now,” said Nolte, who will turn 15 on March 11. “I want to manage something.”
Jason Nolte, however, does have his lighter side. An avid downloader of music singles off the Internet, he enjoys rock music and hopes to get a subwoofer for his computer.
Also, on the wall just to the left of the door to his room, is his bulletin board of odd newspaper stories that hint at a sense of irony. For example, he has a color newspaper photo of Chicago Cubs fan Steve Bartman dropping a foul ball during a 2003 playoff game against the Florida Marlins, which caused Cubs left fielder Moises Alou to miss the ball. Cub fans have blamed Bartman for the team failing to reach the World Series that year.
Nolte has lived in Douglas Fir for 12 of his 14 years. Before that, he and his family, his father, Craig, mother, Linda, and sister, Kristen, lived in Heatherwood West.
