CAtS WItH TAts

By Grace Bloom
Photos by Maria Thames / Layout by Hannah Boufford

Grant Widmark
Wesley Klepac

Kaeli Martel

Rudy Pagud
Tara Schneider

Emma Barina

Jacqui Widmark
Kaeli Martel
Emma Barina

Michael Beck

There is a handful of students who have tattoos at LHS. These tattoos can have specific meanings and varying
values to each person. Here are some students thoughts and stories on their tattoos.
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Rudy Pagud

Rudy Pagud (senior) has a family tattoo that has been passed down
through generations. His tattoo symbolizes pride and has tribal markings
that originate with his family.
Paguds father and friend went with him to get the tattoo; he said
that the pain is just as bad as you would expect it to be.

Michael Beck

Michael Beck (senior) got a tattoo in remembrance of his brother who passed away. He had
always admired his brothers tattoos and when he was 16, he talked to his mom, and they ultimately went together to get a tattoo in honor of him. Beck went all the way to St. Louis
to get the tattoo because minors can get tattoos there with a signature of a parent.
Beck believes people should get a tattoo that means something to them, not one
that just seems cool now. He also gives this advice in regard to picking a
design: Whatever you want to get, get it drawn out, or get a picture of it. Put it
somewhere youre going to look every day, put it as the screen on your phone, put it
on your mirror or wherever you get ready in the morning. Look at it everyday, because
you are going to look at it everyday.

TarA Schneider
Tara Schneider (senior) takes a different approach to the meaning of tattoos.
When she turned 18, she went by herself and got something that she admired.
I just really wanted a tattoo and I thought this looked cool, it doesnt really have
some elaborate meaning but thats fine, Schneider explained.
Schneider said that because she got her tattoo on her ribcage, that made it hurt pretty
bad; when the needle hit her rib was most painful, she said.

Photo courtesy of Tara Schneider

Kaeli Martel

Kaeli Martel (senior) believes that the tattoo you get should truly
have meaning to you. Martel has two tattoos that both have a family
meaning behind them. Martel, along with her mother and sister, have
infinity tattoos each a different style.

For her second tattoo, she had the words I love you to the moon and back in
her mother and sisters handwriting, and she went to get the tattoo with several of
her family members.

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Emma Barina
Emma Barina (senior) has two tattoos that
represent her family and the bond they share.
She decided to get her first tattoo (three hearts
representing her sister, mother, and father) with
her cousin, and for the second tattoo, her family
was present because they all got matching tattoos
(a triangle design with eat family members initial
inside the design).
Barina believes that tattoos need to be thought
through and that tattoos should have value.

Wesley Klepac
Wesley Klepac (junior) has a tattoo of a cross on his chest. He wrestled with what he wanted for about a
year and six months; before he got the tattoo, he started looking at draw-ups and other specifics of the tattoo.
Klepacs advice to people who want tattoos at a young age would be to make sure you know exactly what
you want to get because its going to be on your body for the rest of your life. It may fade, but its never
gonna go away. [You need to] look through a thousand fonts, a thousand possibilities of designs, a thousand
possibilities of shading.
Klepac said that the pain was definitely bearable, and that the area affected gets numb during the tattooing.
He went to get the tattoo with his mom and jokingly added on the record or off the record, I dont care: I
was squeezing my moms hand through the whole thing, yeah I was.

Grant & Jacqui Widmark

Grant and Jacqui Widmark (seniors) have
matching tattoos to represent their sibling
relationship. They both have the Chinese symbol for twin. Jacqui suggested that when getting
a tattoo at a young age, get it somewhere that can
be easily hidden, so it is not out in the open for
everybody to see.
Jacquis tattoo has the symbol for twin inside of a
tribal turtle, this represents her grandparents and
childhood memories of loving and watching
turtles. Both Widmarks said that the tattoos
hurt, although the pain was tolerable.

Photos courtesy of Grant Widmark

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