Personal History

Gary and Cathryn Tomsik

My name is Colleen Tomsik, was born on 26 October 1990 to parents Gary Albert Tomsik and Cathryn Harris Tomsik.  I was born in St. Joseph’s hospital in Burbank, CA and weighed a whole 10 pounds 13 ounces! I am the youngest in my family, by 7 ½ years. My siblings are (in order from oldest to youngest) Robert Aaron, Kathryn (Katie), Jeremy Paul, Michael Gary, Anna, Sarah, and Edward (Eddie) Gordon. Since I was so much younger than my other siblings, I didn’t really know the oldest three very well until I got older; especially my brother Robert, who was 18 when I was born.  Now though, I’ve been able to form good bonds with each of them, even Robert!  I was raised in the house my parents had been living in since they moved to California when Michael was a baby, in good old’ North Hollywood, CA.  I walked by the time that I was 7 months old, I’m sure it was because of all the coaching I received from my older siblings.  My brothers always tell me the story of when I was a baby and needed to go to sleep, if I wouldn’t settle down, they would take me into their room and put on KROQ, the local alternative rock station, and I would settle right down and go to sleep.  My family is quite musical, so I’ve always had a love of music of most kinds and love to get lost in their melodies. 

            Another story that my family likes to hang over me happened when I was about four I believe.  I apparently decided that I needed to moisten up my skin, so I took an entire tub of Vaseline and rubbed it all over my face and head! My siblings and parents laughed and made sure to take pictures for posterity, all before trying to clean me up. 

Fish Lake, UT

            One story that I love to tell has to do with a regular family tradition that’s been around since my Mom was little.  Every year we all go up to Fish Lake, a little lake in south-central Utah, about 50 miles from and “major” town.  There’s a little town, Lowa, about 10 miles away, but it’s not real well known, this bigger town is called Richfield that at least has a Wal-Mart, but that’s the closest we come to civilization.  Well, one day we were out on our boat fishing and I was using my little pole waiting for a bite.  I got distracted while reaching for a soda and before could grab anything my little pole was pulled into the water by a fish. My mom tried to reach for it but it was gone.  A few sad minutes later, my mom felt a bite on her line. Excited, she started to bring her line in on her paddle, but after a couple minutes she noticed that she wasn’t bringing in her line anymore and as she kept going we discovered that she had caught my fishing pole! We kept bringing in the lines and on the end of my line was the culprit of the whole situation, a fish. Good story huh? There are a lot of good memories at that place, especially with some of my Mom’s family.  The only grandparents that I knew in this life were my Mother’s parents, Gordon C Harris and Eunice Parry Harris, both very beloved in my mind.  They would usually be up at the lake around the same time we were, along with many of my Uncles and their families, so we would usually spend a fair amount of time together. 

            As far as schooling goes, I started off in Pre-school, Poly Preschool. It was held at the local High school, also called Poly.  For elementary school I went to Saticoy Elementary, the same place as all my other siblings.  I have some sweet memories of that school.  My kindergarten teacher was Mrs. Hasenstab, my 1^st grade teacher was Ms. Frank, 2^nd grade was Mrs. Vanderlip, 3^rd grade was Ms. Seltzer, 4^th grade was Ms. Siari, and 5^th grade was Ms. Rosales. I loved them all; by my favorites were Ms Seltzer and Ms. Rosales. Ms Seltzer especially stands out in my memory as making a difference in my education.  She wrote songs for a hobby, so she used that talent to make learning easier through little songs; songs like “There are Seven Continents”, “The Verbs”(to the tune of the Flintstones), and “The Time Rhyme”. I struggled a bit in 3^rd grade with multiplication, and especially the “Time Rhyme” helped me learn my 5’s, and she just made sure to take the time to help me figure out the rest.  She also was incredibly creative, some days she would come to class dressed up as some character for the day. We never knew exactly who she would be; when we were reading “Alice in Wonderland” she came as Alice on day, then some days she would come as the Division Diva, and she would teach us about math.  She filled us with a sense of imagination that I am so grateful for! She also loved to travel, and one day she brought to class a little bear that we named Berry the Adventure Bear; she gave the bear to one person in the air port and as they got to their destination they were to put a post card or some token from their location in his backpack and pass it on to the next person.  Eventually he made it back to us, I don’t remember how it worked exactly, but it did and we got to travel vicariously through that little bear.. I kept in touch with her even after I had graduated her class, and she later went on to travel to all the 7 continents on her own, I have a post card from the Louvre, and a little bear that I made her is now on top of Mt Everest! Those are things that dreams are made of; I don’t think I’ll ever forget some of those things. 

            One thing that was also really fun about that school was the musical program. We had music class every week and we did programs for assemblies and parents at a couple times a year. In second grade we did this play about the Three Little Piggy’s, I remember the little masks that we had to wear, and those ridiculous plastic noses; but I’m sure I had fun with it.  With the musical program, I was also really involved with the choir. We did a play when I was in 5^th grade, if I remember right, it was parts of the musical “Annie” and I had the chance to play the leading role! I’m sure the red hair and freckles didn’t hurt anything when assigning the parts, but I was also a pretty good singer back then; my music teacher didn’t hide her praise(I’m trying to say that as humbly as possible).   I’m so glad that I had such a rich environment to grow up in, some of the friends I made there are still some of my best friends now.

            Once I got to Middle School things started to change a little bit for me. I went to James Madison Middle School from 6^th to 8^th grade.  I got involved with band for the first year or so, playing the trumpet and trombone for at least a semester each. I loved playing in concerts and stuff, but in my 7^th grade year I got signed up for the Cadet Corps program at the school, which is a military program and that became my new focus.  I was able to gain rank relatively quickly, I listened to those things that I was told and didn’t get into trouble, so it wasn’t too hard.  I also started to get really involved in some of the teams that we had.  At first I was involved with the color guard, the detail that would carry the flags during the national anthem or pledge of allegiance. I would have given all my effort to that except that at the time my father was working at a job that he wasn’t happy with and there had been talk of moving so that he could get a new one.

            Eventually my father ended up getting a job as the Head Engineer at the Los Angeles Temple, so I knew I would by staying.  I got involved in the Rifle Team, doing drill moves with along with rifle movements in synchronized team.  I absolutely loved it and worked hard to do well at it.  By my 8^th grade year I had become the soloist for the team and had a little spot light moment in each of our performances.  I couldn’t have been prouder as I had also achieved about the highest rank I could get in our organization as well.

Awards Night

            That same patriotism that I gained in that program carried over into High School and as soon as I could I signed up to join the Air Force Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps.  I jumped in head first into this program, making the easy transition from Army vernacular to Air Force.  The Major of our unit decided to nick name me the Enforcer, because I was so quiet in class and he joked that I was is secret weapon for putting people in line.  I was able to make friends quickly in the group as we did so many events together.  I joined the Honor Guard, which was a specialized team that mainly did opening ceremonies for banquets at different military events; we mainly focused on P.O.W. M.I.A. Ceremonies.  I loved being able to wear a uniform and have something to stand for.  I shared my skill with a rifle and was elected to start an Armed Drill Team for the unit.  The team itself had some good years and some bad ones, but by my senior year, we had a pretty steady group and I was also the commander to the Honor Guard, which had been my dream for a long time.  I was also the 3^rd in command in the unit, more by choice than anything else.

            During High school I had some life changing events take place.  For the longest time I thought that I was going to go to Texas A&M for school, major in Mechanical Engineering and join the Air Force as a pilot, but during my senior year everything changed.  I was taking AP (Advanced Placement) Calculus and AP Physics at the same time, and the stress from those classes just about killed me.  I didn’t understand the material and I would just go home in frustration every day.  I knew something had to change and I knew that being an Engineer wasn’t for me.  I started to remember different things that had been said to me over the years, I seemed to have a knack for things of the medical sort, so I decided to switch my focus to that.  I took a First Responder course and just loved it, and decided to go into nursing at either BYU of BYU-Idaho. 

            In the end I didn’t get into BYU so I came up to Idaho and started working toward what I thought was where I was meant to be.  I realized though that I was a little off in my focus, and with a little guidance I got on the road that I would stay on until I graduate, to become a paramedic; still in the medical field, but just not in the hospital all the time.  So that’s where I am now; going to school to be a paramedic and working on going on a mission in the mean time.  Life throws your for some crazy turns sometimes.