15 minutes with Noah, Sarah and Amanda Stratton (more like 30 minutes)

Icon: What was the first thing you remember wanting to be when you grew up?
Noah: (thinking).

Icon: Okay, while you think, can you name your sister Amanda's eighth grade science project?
Noah: Something to do with tasting jellybeans.
Sarah: Something to do with memory.

Icon: Amanda, what was it?
Amanda: Sarah's right. Memory.
Sarah: Mine involved jellybeans and taste. I wanted to determine at what age was your highest capacity of taste. It's between 20 and 30.
Noah: (finally answering the first question) I'm thinking it was a football player.

Icon: Okay, what is your least favorite subject in school?

Noah: English.
Sarah: I'll say between reading and math.
Amanda: (Sort of butting in) Reading. I dislike English the most. I don't like poetry. I'm more interested in math and history.
Noah: See, Amanda is dominating the conversation.

Icon: Sarah, what's it like being the middle child?
Sarah: I got compared a lot to my sister. I had to live up to her. Then, I had to babysit him (Noah) a ton. I'm not as competitive as Amanda. She's competitive in every single thing.

Icon: For example?
Sarah: The three of us had a penmanship contest. Mom judged. Amanda won.

Icon: Penmanship contest?
Noah: We play games all the time.

Icon: How many pairs of shoes are in your closet?
Amanda: I'd say 40 to 45. A lot. Many are sports shoes. Really old ones. I probably use 15 to 20 pairs.
Sarah: Shoes currently in use, or just shoes? A ton. I would say 30 to 35.
Noah: Ten (he starts counting them off on his fingers). No. Nine.

Icon: How about songs on your IPods?
Noah: 200 to 250.
Sarah: 187 or 197. I just looked.
Amanda. I have two. I'd say 500.

Icon: Why do you have two?
Amanda: Someone gave me one.

Icon: How many times a day do you text someone?
Noah: I'd say...20 to 25. Among three people. My buddies.
Sarah: At school? Oh, gosh, probably 90 to 100. Between six to eight friends.
Amanda: Probably 30 to 40. When I was in high school probably 100, between four or five friends.

Icon: Noah, when are you going to get your driver's permit?
Noah: I could get it Dec. 20. I'll probably wait until early January.

Icon: Who did you drive with when you were logging your 50 hours?
Sarah: Probably mom, because mom would pick me up after school. I was really scared to drive.

Icon: Noah, what would the reaction of your parents be if you came home with a tattoo?
(Lots of laughing at this point)
Noah: Grandma Stratton says she'd cut it off and then the skin would grow back.

Icon: When did she tell you that?
Noah: During a basketball game we were watching. She volunteered it on her own.
Sarah: We were told that we wouldn't get our college paid for if we had a tattoo.

Icon: Who brought this subject up?
Amanda: They did (our parents). It was after we came home with henna tattoos from a friend's house. I was 15. Sarah was 13.

Icon: (Asked if anyone ever had a traffic ticket or a school detention. The conversation went way off. (Short version, Sarah may or may not have passed a school bus with or without its lights blinking. Went to juvenile court.)
Noah: In kindergarten I jumped off the merry-go-round at recess and jumped on a kid. I had my card taken down for that. In seventh grade while waiting for a class to start, someone told me to stick a pencil in the door (it was locked). I did and the lead broke off. When the teacher came the door jammed. We had to wait 20 minutes to get in class. The teacher gave me a detention.

Icon: What was the first movie you remember watching?
Amanda: Aladdin, no, Little Mermaid.
Sarah: I have no idea. Honest. No clue. I have a bad memory, but the Parent Trap with Lindsay Lohan is my favorite movie.
Noah: Fantasia with Mickey Mouse.
All explaining at once: We would watch movies at home and eat popcorn and apples. These ranged from The Sound of Music, Father of the Bride 1 and 2, Chitty, Chitty, Bang, Bang (dad knows all the words to the songs). These are all on VHS tapes.

Icon: Tell us about painting the street at the high school when you were a senior.
Amanda: It was kind of in the middle. Six of us, Kendra, Leah, Emily, Meagan and Kayleigh wrote our names in Scrabble fashion. Our names were connected.
Sarah: In two different places. One was at the stop sign near the Campus Life room. The other was with 10 other girls. We outlined our bodies and then painted our names and decorated the outlines.

Icon: Noah, what color were your sister's prom dresses?
Noah: Sarah had a blue one, pink one and one with all sorts of colors. Amanda had a blue one, brown one - no, that was homecoming - and a lime green one.

Icon: What type of advice do your sisters give you?
Noah: They give me advice on sports.

Icon: Tell me about your sports injuries.
Sarah: I broke my right foot. It was a stress fracture in track and volleyball.
Amanda: I had knee surgery but I've never broken a bone.

Icon: How many teddy bears do you have from visits to the hospital?
Amanda: Three.
Sarah: Three or four.
Noah: Two.

Icon: Tell me about your dolls when you were growing up.
Sarah: I had five Groovy Girl dolls, two American Dolls and tons of Barbies. I named them all and played with them all. With Amanda, it would be a perfectionist thing. She'd keep them in their boxes. I was Amanda's doll.
Noah: I had five little dogs and took them everywhere. Once at the greenhouse I was playing like they were in quicksand. One of them got left in a pile of dirt. That was a sad day.

At this point the conversation headed toward Noah's pressure to get the Cappy Clark Award, since his sisters, uncle and dad each received it, Sarah's elaboration about how frazzled she was when being called to the school office about the bus incident and Amanda's summer internship.

About the interviewees: The three are children of Dave and Julie Stratton of Bluffton.
Noah is a sophomore at Bluffton High School.
Sarah is a sophomore at Taylor University, majoring in elementary education.
Amanda is a senior, graduating in December from Indiana Wesleyan University, majoring in business management and administration. She has a summer internship with the Hershey's Company in Ft. Wayne.

Sarah served as a camp counselor at Spring Hill Camp, for middle school students in Seymour, Ind.

Noah was involved in a white water rafting expedition, a mission trip and is now enjoying two-a-day football workouts.