High school senior Blaise Bowers is known for his prominent role in the Legacy community through his leadership in numerous clubs and academic dedication. With his nomination for Senior Greatest Bolt, we interviewed his life as a student, actor, and aspiring attorney.
Q. What is your greatest obsession in life right now?
I am a huge fan of all things legal. I love Supreme Court case law and love learning about it. I’m a big nerd for reading case law briefs and analyses like acts and rules and all that kind of stuff. I plan to be an entertainment attorney as well as a filmmaker and businessman.
Q. What inspired you to pursue law?
For starters, I’ve always had a huge love for rules. When I was younger, my sister was always a big troublemaker, so I would either find myself tattling on her or representing her, explaining to my parents why what she did shouldn’t be against the rules or why what she did technically was allowed. I’ve always been that kind of devil’s advocate or had a prosecutorial mindset.
Q. As for your passion for acting, what has been your favorite project?
It would be Real Michigan, which is currently my biggest project. It’s a full-length feature film I’ve been working on since freshman year, and I am the lead in it. It just wrapped up towards the beginning of this school year, and right now, it’s in the editing room.
It’ll get published in maybe a year. First, it’s a very long movie. The director said his current cut has been four hours, and he wants to whittle it down to around two hours. Then, he has to go through the indie circuit, meaning that we have to try and get into some of the major festivals like Sundance. Once it goes through and does well, then it can go to movie theaters or a major company like Netflix or Paramount for their platforms.
Q. What was your favorite part about working on Real Michigan?
It was the people. They were all super, super nice. Love the director―shout out to Matthew! He’s very, very nice. I also really loved the cinematographer. I’ve been working with him for years, even on some of my first film projects, so I’ve been with him all along. The other crew, like Rob, who was the boom op and did some other crew stuff, were also extremely nice. I also love my co-star, Aspen. She’s very, very nice and a great actress to work with.
Q. What clubs do you participate in and why?
I have a club for almost every day of the week―all days except Friday. My first club is International Food Club, and I am the co-president on Mondays. I enjoy cultures, I’m a big foodie, and I’m a huge world traveler. I’ve been to every single continent except for Africa, Antarctica, and Australia. I love to eat foods from all over the world, so I thought it would be a great club to go to. I was the secretary of it originally, but then once the end of the year came, the two founders and presidents graduated. There was this power vacuum that no one wanted to fill. Most people who went to the club just wanted to eat food, but they didn’t really want to step up and help lead the club. So, I volunteered to be the president for the time being, and that ended up being a full-time position with my co-president, Leia Wilson.
My second club is Model United Nations where I am the former president and current state conference coordinator. That’s on Tuesdays. I’ve always had a big passion for world studies, other cultures, and learning. I’m also a big debater. I really like arguing, so I thought Model UN would be a great fit. I joined it freshman year, and I’ve been doing it ever since.
On Wednesdays, I have National Honor Society, the only club where I don’t have an officer position. I really like to help out my community, but I haven’t done that enough, which has been a regret of mine throughout high school. I joined NHS to not only help my resume, but also to get more volunteer experience and help my community more than I have in the past.
Thursday is Film Club where I am the president and founder. I remember watching a show―which is very fitting―called A Million Little Things where one of the characters came home from school, and he said, “Mom, I was just at Film Club.” I heard that, and I was like, wait―schools have film clubs? That’s so cool. I want to do that. A few months later, I went to Mr. Chacon, saying that I wanted to start a club. He explained, “Okay, okay, pal, hold your horses. You need to create a constitution. You need to do XYZ,” so I had them done by the end of the year and started in the fall.
Q. What is the most memorable thing you’ve done for Legacy?
I would probably say my clubs. Of course, creating a club is always a great thing. Schools definitely do need clubs. But I also feel like running clubs has been my big duty here at Legacy. If you can make an impact by helping people find something they’re passionate about and building a community, that’s really honorable.
Q. What is the most memorable thing a Legacy staff or student has done for you?
I would say Ms. Stern last year for AP Lang because she helped me with my writing. Before that, I rambled a lot, and my writing wasn’t at a high level. I truly appreciate her helping me because I’m writing a book right now. With her help, I’ve been able to refine it into something that I think is of higher quality and may resonate with larger audiences. Therefore, I truly appreciate the impact that she had on me and my writing.
Q. What is your book?
My book, No Matter Where, is a blend of dystopian, sci-fi, fantasy, and magical realism in a world called Pritecum. The human race, one of the only thousand to exist on Earth, lives underground due to pollution on the surface from magical material byproducts. The world follows how the government acts in a fantasy, sci fi world, and plays into themes of what is evil. There are a lot of different characters and elements that are stereotypically considered evil, but they are much deeper than that, twisting different perspectives to make you think.
I also like to twist different speakers. The first three chapters have different main characters, and then the story finally lands on the actual main character. Since this is a two-part storyline, each part has a different main character and different times. The first character begins without any power, yet he accumulates a lot of power through difficult choices. In the second book, the main character is a very famous philosopher who can shape and build societies. He plays with his role and his duty in society to make humanity better.
Q. What inspired you to make your book?
During Comic-Con, I was attending this panel on medieval, DnD-style warfare. At one point, the guy who ran it said that he’d never seen a book that took place in space about a medieval space battle and DnD. I thought that was really interesting, so I was going to write a book like that.
I found this competition called Writers and Illustrators of the Future for sci-fi or fantasy. I thought my book would be perfect for this, so I wrote my first draft. I wanted to try and make a grounded story that was a lot more original and played on elements of warfare. My initial idea for the book took place on the moon called Yarinalii where there is this big war. I kept that element in the current version of the book. However, it now takes place in the Kingdom of Lanorii where the main characters lie underground in Pritecum.
While I didn’t win the competition, it got my first draft down and got me thinking about my story. I’ve been building on that for about a year, now.
Q. What was the greatest challenge you faced, and how did you overcome it?
In middle school, I was bullied. I had a rolling backpack for a long time, and people thought that was weird. They would steal it from me and pick at me for it. So I told my mom, no, I’m not having rolling backpack. I refuse. That’s the whole reason why I don’t have it now. Middle school was a really dark place for me, and I was a little suicidal. I feel like I lost myself for those three years. I didn’t really know who I wanted to be. I lost a lot of the creativity that binds me today, and I lost a lot of my sense of self. I had a slight idea to be a filmmaker, businessman, and lawyer, so that’s where my interests started to build. However, overcoming this struggle has been my biggest thing.
Q. What is one misconception people have about you?
I’m very loud, so people think it makes me seem a little mean or a bit too out there. Sometimes, others believe that I put everything out and that I’m so loud to the point where I show everything. But really, I’m a little more internal. There’s a lot more that I keep inside myself and don’t show people.
Q. What is something that people don’t know about you?
My book, for one, is something I kept to myself until earlier this year. However, I don’t usually tell a lot of people about my gaming. I played Roblox for the longest time until last year. Another thing is probably creativity. There aren’t a whole lot of times in school where I can really show my creativity, but it’s one of my core values.
Q. Why should you be nominated for Senior Greatest Bolt?
I believe part of the idea behind Greatest Bolt is to represent the community. I like to do that through my uniqueness through all my extracurriculars and how I present myself. It certainly doesn’t mean that I’m better than anyone else. It doesn’t mean that I have more rigor than anyone else. But, I still show a lot of uniqueness, and I think Legacy is a very unique community. Everyone is their own person, and I highlight that as an individual. As the Greatest Bolt, I’d like to show people that it’s okay to be unique. It’s okay to be original. This is something that really can shine at Legacy, especially in this year’s senior class.
