Before our interview, Summit High School freshman Logan Weinman prepared a pencil-written list of all the people, places and events that have touched his life, which he neatly ripped out of his Mead notebook before reciting and handing over to me.

The archive takes up the whole page and is too long to recount in full, but it's obvious Weinman's life in Summit County, where he has spent his entire 15 years, has been one shaped by others. There are some local organizations — like the Keystone Science School, the Backstage and Lake Dillon theatres, the Rotary Club of Summit County's Interact and Colorado Learning Connections; activities — basketball with the Summit-Lake Dillon Optimists, the math team at Colorado Mountain College, skiing, cross-country running and Taekwondo; and a long list of people — many of his teachers and advisors, authors T.A. Barron and Jeffrey Bennett, Summit County Commissioner Dan Gibbs, and even TV news anchor Wolf Blitzer, whom Weinman had the opportunity to meet recently.

At the top of the page, Weinman wrote two quotes. One is from former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau: “Luck, that's when preparation and opportunity meet.” The other is from author Steve Young: “It's about self-improvement, about being better than you were the day before.” Next to that quote, Weinman wrote a note in parenthesis: “I learn something new everyday.”

“It's been very amazing growing up here, not just because of the skiing and the snow, but because of all the learning opportunities that have come up here,” Weinman said. “(Summit) is geared towards learners like me who continuously want to learn.”

Searching for knowledge

Weinman started reading when he was 2. His mother Sheri Weinman said she and her husband, Rick, realized their toddler was reading when he started reciting the words from signs he saw around town. Logan has been an avid reader ever since. He recently finished “The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements,” which tells the tales of the elements and their respective places in human history. Logan read it at the suggestion of his science teacher; before that, he had always focused on fiction.

He really enjoys writing short stories. In third-grade he was lucky enough to author a children's book, “Max's Ice Age Adventure” with Bennett, the “story of how Max the dog and his friend Tori traveled to the time of the Ice Age and brought home important lessons for our own time,” as it reads in the introduction. Logan has also always enjoyed drawing, and drew the illustrations for the book. In sixth-grade he won first place in a Rocky Mountain PBS short-story contest, and more recently, the Rotary/Summit Daily News Short Story contest.

“I'm always writing,” the young author told the Summit Daily in 2009. “There's bits of writing all over the house.”

He has taken a few art classes at Colorado Mountain College — he likes watercolors and oil painting; Sheri said he once told her he likes watercolor because the brush “listens to him better.” Logan also likes to act, and spoke about a recent workshop he took at the Denver Center Theatre Academy, where he learned how to juggle and “how to die a Shakespearean death.”

Besides the arts, Logan also enjoys math and science. He has been taking advanced math classes at Colorado Mountain College for a few years, which is something he finds both exciting and challenging. When asked where he sees himself in 10 years, Logan said he hopes to be coming out of college with a Ph.D. and finding a job in science research nearby. He and his parents joke that the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden would be perfect because it's not far from Elitch Gardens Theme Park, one of his favorite places to visit.

No matter what he's doing, Logan said he tries to work as hard as he can, and understands “good things don't come easy.” He is in the jazz band in school — something he said leaves him in awe of his fellow musicians.

Full circle

And while Logan has strived to absorb as much of the world as he can so far, he and his mother both say that all of his opportunities stem from a “full circle of learning,” which started in Summit County.

A trip to Washington, D.C. last summer for the National History Day Contest came out of a documentary he made for school, entitled “The Story of the Hoover Dam Debate.” Logan came up with the idea after learning all about water rights and resources the summer before at Keystone Science School. There was a speech he wrote for the oratorical series in fourth-grade about his hero — his grandfather — which he re-read last year at his grandfather's funeral. Along with a few other students, he was able to present his thoughts on the pine beetle to members of the community at the end of another Keystone science camp.

And some fun, too

His father Rick Weinman said he is proud of his son, and gets a lot of enjoyment watching him learn and supporting his efforts.

“Most of the kids here are big ducks in a small pond,” Sheri Weinman said. “He is blooming where he's planted. Summit County has a lot of really bright kids.”

And that's the thing: While Logan's mentality pushes him to work as hard as he can, he's still a kid. He likes to go skiing, hiking and bike riding with his friends, hang out with his parents and younger sister Payton, and listen to music. He likes The Beatles — he has sketched John Lennon and Paul McCartney; Coldplay — “Clocks” is one of his favorite songs; and Maroon 5.

Logan's biography from when he was 12 is featured on the last page “Max's Ice Age Adventure.” But today — only three years later but forever in a teenager's life — it is just as fitting.

“Logan dreams of becoming a scientist, doctor or writer/illustrator,” it says. “Maybe one day he will become them all.”