Chase Wickard just graduated from Banner County High School in May. In August, he will report in at Doane College in Crete, Nebraska to begin baseball practice and get ready for classes.Wickard will study courses in biology, ecology and science that will steer him towards a career as a wild life biologist, possible with the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission. He will take some courses in criminal justice that will be helpful should he become a game warden.He has a baseball scholarship to Doane. Wickard was offered a football/baseball scholarship but chose to go the baseball only route. Doane College plays baseball in the fall and spring, unlike Nebraska high schools.Wickard said, “I like both sports but I like baseball best. There isn’t time for both.”He is currently playing for the Westco Zephyrs Senior Legion baseball team. Wickard pitches, but does a little hitting also. He has four doubles so far this summer.His bread and butter pitch is the fastball with the curve as the strikeout pitch.He traces his interest in baseball back to T-ball “as a kid” and then moved up to  two years of Jr. Legion ball. Wickard is now in his second year of Sr. Legion competion.Wickard says that baseball is filling the summer. Two games Saturday, July 27, then two on Sunday and two on Tuesday. No practice Monday. Then it’s practice Wednesday, Thursday and Friday before games over the Fourth.He had just  come back from a four day road trip to Omaha for ball games there.The St. Louis Cardinals is his favorite MLB team.Right after this interview, Wickard was off to paint Grandpa’s house white. At four o’clock there would be ball practice. In between all this activity, he mowed some lawns.Wickard played quarterback on the BCHS football team and guard on the basketball  team that lost to Hay Springs by two or  three points in the District finals. Hay Springs went on to take fourth place in the state D-2  tournament. He took a moment to diagram the “triangle plus two” defense that BCHS used to good effect.And Wickard was an excellent hurdler on the BCHS track team. He won the 110 high hurdle event in District competition and was second in the 300 meter intermediate hurdles and the long jump.Wickard said, “The hurdles are technique and rythym.” He illustrated by clapping his hand together lightly and rapidly three times.  He said, “That’s how your feet have to go.”“Our school track was cinder and most of the meet tracks were asphalt. That change can be a difficult adjustment, “ he said.He also competed on the state level in as a member of the speech team.Four years at BCHS in Harrisburg but he lives a mile or so northwest of Scottsbluff. He met some kids from BCHS at an athletic tournament when he was in the eighth grade and decided to check it out. With family approval, he enrolled at BCHS and enjoyed it all.Wickard said, “The classes are small and there was lots of personal attention.” He drove from home to school most of the time, said it wasn’t bad at all, except for some of those trips in the winter.Wickard said he is looking forward to Doane College. He has already met some of his professors and likes the small college feel. Good luck, Chase.