Over the 2015 Easter Break, on April 11, freshman theology teacher Kevin Hansen unexpectedly died after falling ill from leukemia earlier that week. His death shocked the Mount Carmel community. Mr. Hansen’s last freshmen class, the class of 2018, is about to graduate.

Mr. Hansen impacted everyone around him, even those who never actually met him. Mr. Lorenzo Nunez was the man who had the hard task of replacing him. When he first came to Carmel, Nunez felt pressure when he heard about how “loved”  Mr. Hansen was. Coming in, Nunez remembers hearing there would be a “residual feeling of loss in the student body,”which did not help Nunez to feel less pressure. When Nunez came in for his first week,  he found the list of traits a man should have Hansen used to have, and when he saw this he was inspired to “live out the same level of faith” that Mr. Hansen had.

Mr. Dan Burke and Mr. Hansen both started teaching the same year, and their rooms were right down the hall from one another. Burke remembers Mr. Hansen being full of energy, such as all of the times Hansen was the last person to leave the school. Burke still tries to emulate Hansen in any way he can. He tries to make sure he is never unfair to his students. If he is ever too critical of a student, he will apologize, just like Mr. Hansen.

As for the seniors, those were taught by him remember him well. Current class president Zac Styka has several fond memories of Mr. Hansen. One memory is whenever someone asked him a question he did not know the answer to, Hansen would write down the question and answer it the next day when he had an answer. Styka also remembers all the times Hansen helped his students study, and how he was always coming up with ways of making his students lives easier.