Willing to work

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Ryan Beck’s hardhat from his USG internship came in handy when he went to New Jersey for Hurricane Sandy cleanup. Photo by Terry Barner.

Ryan Beck‘s first experience of leaving the comforts of home to help faraway strangers occurred when he was just a year old. That’s when his parents took him on a mission trip to Mexico.

Since then, Beck has gone to Louisiana three times to help with Hurricane Katrina Relief and has visited Hutchinson, Kan., twice to help build houses.

The senior in mechanical engineering from Louisburg, Kan., led a Miner Challenge alternative spring break trip to New Jersey to help with Hurricane Sandy cleanup. Two other groups headed to Biloxi, Miss. — a group led by Cagatay Atmaca and Sarah Jones helped with early childhood education and a group led by Raheel Hassan and Elise Kittrell worked on environmental restoration.

As soon as I learned about Hurricane Sandy, I started looking for an opportunity to help,” he says.

“I want to work, I want to be exhausted when I go to bed,” he says of service trips. “When I helped after Katrina they had to tell us to quit. We kept on going because we wanted to get things done.

“If I’m traveling all the way there, I want it to be worth it,” he says.

An Eagle Scout and former student body president at Missouri S&T, Beck’s also involved with Blue Key, Christian Campus Fellowship and Delta Sigma Phi fraternity and graduated from the Chancellor’s Leadership Academy.

He spent six months as an intern with United States Gypsum Co. in Southard, Okla. A year before that he spent six months studying abroad in Hong Kong, where he traveled to 15 different countries.

“Hong Kong was awesome. I especially loved the temples in Cambodia,” says Beck. He plans to save his money so he can travel as much as possible — for both fun and service.

By Linda Fulps