You’ve seen him in the halls and you’ve seen him at football games, but just who exactly is Remy the Raptor? Acclaimed as one of Magnet’s most interesting people, the face behind the mask is none other than senior Ricky Keys. I decided to sit down with Ricky and discuss some of his most iconic moments as school mascot.

“Hey Ricky, what has been your favorite memory as the school mascot?”

My favorite memory as school mascot? To be honest, it’s gotta be the day that I tried out. I didn’t actually plan to crowd surf. For those of you who don’t know, we had tryouts at a pep rally last year. I was the junior class choice because our president Sully Gholsen invited me to tryout. My plan was to go out there, heely around, and turn back. But as I was coming toward the junior class, they started screaming at me to come toward them. So I did. And then they started grabbing me and shoving me up the bleachers. Before I knew it, I was on top of everybody crowd-surfing. Everyone thought it was the plan, but I was freaking out. It was really fun though. 

“With regards to the National Merit article, some students are curious about your hobby of making small dioramas. Could you elaborate on that please?”

Yeah, I enjoy collecting plastic skeletons and dressing them up as dioramas. You can find them on my instagram actually, but there’s a funny story behind it. I had a plastic skeleton that was a Halloween prop hanging outside my window, and I was too lazy to pick it up. So it was hanging out there for about two years, and finally I had to take it down because the Home Owners’ Association decided that they didn’t like the skeleton because *air quotes* “it didn’t pertain to a holiday.” So I thought, you know what? I’m gonna make this annoying as possible. So I put it up and bought a bunch of plastic skeletons. I now put them around my street for every single holiday. I have lifesize, miniature, dogs, and cats; I have one riding a horse. The person who reported me lives on my street. I’m actually writing a book on this called “Game of Homes.” Anyway, I put the skeletons up for national holidays, Jewish holidays, and literally any holiday you can google. 

“How many skeletons or any sort of figures would you say you own?”

Uh, thirty lifesize, twenty miniatures, five cats, five dogs, and one riding a horse. So that totals up to around sixty-one. Something like that. I plan on adding a bunch because they’re having a sale at the Halloween store.

“What are some of your favorite Magnet traditions?”

I’m gonna go a little out of the box on this one. I like the way we keep it fresh every year. You know, we have our bingo, Generation Day, and Harry Potter Day, but I just love the way that I can look forward to each spirit day because of the new ideas. Also, [I love] the way that everybody works together to work on their walls. There’s no way we could get that in any other school because we all sort of come together. Literally everybody. Every friend group comes together and works on it collectively, and that’s just awesome to see. 

“If you could describe Magnet’s school spirit to a student from another high school, what would you say?”

Here’s the thing that people usually don’t understand about school spirit. A lot of people think that I create the school spirit, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. I’m just sort of a facilitator for it, and everybody else contributes to it in their own way. When everybody dresses up for a spirit day or goes to a football game, or even just helps somebody out, it contributes to the school spirit. I’m just a way to facilitate and amplify it. If I had to describe the school spirit to someone else? I would say that we’re all a family, and there’s really nothing like it when you get the entirety of a class together and they’re all together to do one thing. I love that about this school.

“When you’re not soaring as on of Magnet’s most iconic raptors, what do you do in your free time?”

I like to bounce back and forth between different hobbies. Right now, I’m working as a music producer. I have my own Beat Stars account, and I actually make money off of it, believe it or not. That sounds like a lowkey flex, but it actually is sustainable income. Aside from that, I sort of have a passion for health and nutrition because I come from a family where that’s not really stressed, and I definitely feel the effects of things like childhood obesity today. So I enjoy talking to younger people like kids at middle schools about how to eat properly and get them on the right track. Education as far as nutrition goes is pretty much absent. We’re gonna have a bunch of people growing up who don’t know how to cook, who don’t know what they’re putting into their bodies, and it’s horrible to me. 

“So are you very conscious about what you put in your body?”

Oh, of course. I track everything. There’s no way I can’t; it’s just sort of a lifestyle at this point. 

“What’s the best class that you’ve taken at AMHS?”

I enjoy taking difficult classes based on the material. I definitely enjoy calculus and physics, but I enjoy the challenge of having to think for myself. Music theory was definitely one of my favorite classes as well.

“What are your plans after high school?”

So far, I want to go to a college that I probably can’t get into, like everyone else in this school. My top choice is Georgetown right now. I want to go into mathematics and get a doctorate in that. If possible, I want to double major in philosophy, because believe it or not, mathematics and philosophy kind of go together once you get to higher levels. It’s more about thinking about things abstractly and theoretically. That’s what fascinates me. From there, who knows? It’s really impossible to tell. I could become a philosophy professor like my ancestors before me. I want to do something that allows me to think creatively and critically.

“How do you think we should pass on the torch to another student for the position of school mascot?

I really enjoy the competition. I want the mascot to be completely dedicated and go all out. My plan is to have another competition during coming home, except I’m gonna have a monetary prize, and I’m gonna select who the raptor is.

“Why did you want to become the mascot?”

Well, the reason that I was allowed to tryout was because Sully said some people wanted me to do it. To this day, he has not told me who said it, and I’ve always wondered about that. It is my theory that I never really chose to be the mascot. This sounds like something really profound, but I feel like being the mascot has helped me shape who I am today with my creativity, how out of the box I am, how dedicated I am to making this a positive place. I feel like the universe has a plan, and a small, minute part of that plan is that I was supposed to be the school mascot. So, I don’t think I really chose it, I think it chose me.

“Thanks for sitting down with me, Ricky. I learned a lot”

Of course, anytime Davis.