photo courtesy of Mr. Lex

In addition to being a science teacher, Mr. Mark Lex also works as an EMT, volunteers at the raptor center, takes photographs as a hobby and participated in a rock band during his high school years.

As a man of many talents, Mr. Mark Lex’s involvements vary from EMT work to environmental club adviser, from music to volunteering at a nature center, and from frog and toad surveying to photography.

His decision to teach came to him as a no-brainer. “I was always interested in math and science. It was a little bit of soul searching, too. I just kind of felt the calling. I guess you could say, I wanted to make a difference in people’s lives,” Mr. Lex said.

Through his work in the BSM community and throughout the Twin Cities, Mr. Lex has affected those around him. Teaching at BSM for 30 years, he was the recipient of the 2006-2007 Apple Polisher Award, given to exceptional teachers and mentors. Mr. Lex was also inducted into the BSM Hall of Honor in 2011, receiving the Volunteer Service Award.

In addition to his success in teaching and service at BSM, Mr. Lex is dedicated to many different volunteer positions outside of school. He volunteers every other week at the Richardson Volunteer Center in Bloomington, working with raptors. “I volunteer on a regular basis to help take care of [the raptors]… I make sure they’re healthy and speak to the public about them,” Mr. Lex said.

Mr. Lex also has a commitment to performing frog and toad surveys three times a year for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. “There is a group of 100 volunteers who are assigned an area that you go to during the spring and summer. You go to this location and basically just sit for five minutes, listening to the frogs and toads. I need to know what the fourteen different noises the frogs and toads make to identify them and make an estimate on how many there are in that area,” Mr. Lex said.

Photography is another outlet in which Mr. Lex can express his love for the environment and nature. His passion for photography began when he was in junior high, buying his own darkroom materials to develop the pictures he took. Through many years of investment in this art, his favorite moments have been during last year’s state hockey tournament and an encounter in Alaska. “We went on this tour at Denali National Park. There was a moose in the middle of a stream that had been attacked by wolves and those wolves were off to the side, waiting for the moose to collapse,” Mr. Lex said.

Mr. Lex’s best-kept secret of his high school days was not just his interest in photography; he was a member of a band. He was a necessary part of this group, providing the classic guitar sound that all rock music contains. “We weren’t very good, but we had a lot of fun,” Mr. Lex said.

It’s surprising that the parents of Mr. Lex and the other three members didn’t go insane after all the time the boys spent in their basements. “We’d go to one of the other kids’ houses for about two days, and they’d say ‘get out of here’ and we’d go to my parents’ house and stay there for about two weeks and then move on. My parents were more tolerant than the others. Everything we played sounded the same to them; they always joked that it was one song,” Mr. Lex said.

Their music style was mostly rock; Mr. Lex credits The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and Creedence Clearwater Revival as the band’s biggest inspirations. Although his rockstar days have ended, Mr. Lex still keeps up with his passion for music. “I pick a guitar up every once in a while and just play around, but the guys I was in the band with, they still play around at bars and do small gigs,” Mr. Lex said.