(This week The Columbian-Progress spotlights Marion County School District IT Specialist John Sabine.)
Q: When and where were you born?
A: I was born in Columbia Jan. 29, 1967.
Q: Where did you attend school?
A: I attended school in the Columbia School District.
Q: Where do you work? Tell us about your job/company.
A: I work for the Marion County School District as part of the IT department. I do camera systems, bus video systems, intercom systems, projectors, cafeteria systems and I deal with all of the wiring that connects everything else. I also work on computers, and I run sound, lights and do AV for events and festivals.
Q: What led you to your profession?
A: It’s just what I’ve always done. I would skip school to stay home and work on electronics. My mom owned an answering service and the telephone guys were always there working on the phone systems, and I would watch them work on things. My grandfather was a handyman, and I watched him work on things. As I got older, it just developed and I really liked audio and electronics.
Q: What do you enjoy most about your job?
A: I enjoy seeing the kids and knowing that what I do makes a difference in how they learn. I enjoy knowing that I make it better and easier for them to learn.
Q: What is the most challenging aspect of your job?
A: From 1991 to 2014, I worked for myself and had the music store here in town. I could set my own schedule and come and go as I pleased. Now I am in a much more structured environment. It’s a little difficult because I feel like I have to be doing something every single minute of every single day. With working for someone else, I put the pressure on myself that from the time I walk through the door until I leave there needs to be something that I’m working on.
Q: What is the most important lesson you have learned in your career?
A: Probably the most important lesson I’ve learned has been in life, which is persistence and adaptation. I lost my business because of the tornado. Before that 2008 wiped out the economy and most of the country. Before that Hurricane Katrina came through and wiped everything out. I learned that you don’t really have a choice; you just have to get up and start again. The world changes continually so I have to be able to examine my beliefs about a lot of things, and I have to be able to adapt. In technology everything changes all the time.
Q: When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
A: I wanted to be a meteorologist. I still kind of regret not doing that because you can be wrong a lot of the time and still have a job.
Q: What was your first job?
A: When I was 12 years old, I would DJ parties for people, but they would have to come and pick me up because I couldn’t drive. I also worked for Hammond’s Television Repair.
Q: Who is the person who has been most influential in your life?
A: There’s not one person, but there’s been a lot. I didn’t know my dad until I was 19, so there was a lot of really strong authority figures, both men and women, all the way up that provided guidance and even now. There’s a lot of people I look to for advice or just look as a way I want to model myself to be.
Q: Do you have children?
A: My daughter is Joanna, and I have two stepsons, Robert and Steven.
Q: If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go?
A: I want to spend a year in Alaska to see how a year in Alaska would evolve because it’s such a different lifestyle.
Q: What hobbies do you like to do in your spare time?
A: I ride and work on motorcycles, work around the house and hang out with my dogs.
Q: What do you enjoy about Columbia and Marion County?
A: I like the fact that it is a smaller, tight-knit community that you at least know of almost everyone you come in contact with during a day. If something happens to someone, there’s always a group of people that come together to be there for them. You’re never really alone because there’s so many people around you that care enough about you to do something for you.
Q: If you could have lunch with anyone from your life or history, who would it be and why?
A: My grandfather, Bill, because by the time I came along he was pretty tired and it turns out I’m a lot more like him than I thought. I would like to ask him some questions and talk to him because it might be introspective.
Q: If you didn’t have to worry about money, what would you do all day?
A: I would go back to owning the local music store and go back to what I did then.
Q: What moment in your life has had the biggest impact on who you are today?
A: I had a motorcycle accident a few years ago. I hit a deer, got thrown from the bike, slid down the highway and woke up in the ditch. When I woke up, I knew I was busted up, but I didn’t know how badly. I just stared in the sky and was trying to think “Am I OK? Am I right with God?” I was just peaceful about it. That was interesting because I didn’t know if I was going to live or die and asked myself if I was worried where I was going to do. My answer was no. I wasn’t concerned at all. Not having to think I need to repent in that moment, I was at peace. Thinking about my daughter was really, really sad, though. Going through the tornado was big, too, because when you see how powerless in the universe you really are when you think you have everything under control and something like a tornado comes by, you have to start over and reevaluate. Those were two times in my life that were very important as far as changing the way my thinking went.
Q: Using one word for each, what are your top three morals?
A: Honesty, integrity and compassion.
Q: How would you like to be remembered?
A: As someone who always did what they could.
Pictured Above: Marion County School District IT Specialist John Sabine previously owned a music shop in Columbia but said he enjoys being able to better serve the community’s youth. “I enjoy knowing that I make it better and easier for them to learn,” he said. | Photo by Joshua Campbell
