Good News Bulletin
July 5, 2024
Logan Blakeslee, one of the Elizabeth High School’s 2016 valedictorians, works to change lives halfway around the world.
The driving force behind Mongolian Prosthetics, he created his own improbable path and earned a prestigious Fulbright Scholarship to provide 3D-printed arms and hands for disabled people who would otherwise never have access to such life-changing assistance.
Blakeslee’s path, which included a 36-hour bus ride across Mongolia’s countryside just for a volunteer opportunity, started in Elizabeth, expanded because of his own interest in international travel, then came together with a realization that his own aptitudes and interests can make a difference.
His mother, Kim Kieca, is the advanced math teacher and athletic director at Legacy Academy, where Blakeslee attended from kindergarten through middle school. His early interest in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) was nurtured at Legacy and at home, then further advanced at EHS.
After successful years in Elizabeth classrooms, Blakeslee headed to Colorado State University, where he earned dual degrees in mechanical engineering and biomedical engineering. Those led to a job in the private sector for a short time, but all the while, something was gnawing at him.
The original seed of his interest in Mongolia actually came from a Windows background image that captivated his attention. “In high school it came up on my laptop, and I just started Googling about where that picture was taken and … and I ended up realizing I really wanted to go check it out,” Blakeslee said.
Along with Mongolia, he visited Iceland, Hungary, South Korea and Japan. But his determination to get to Mongolia required patience and connections.
“My aunt’s co-worker’s nephew married a girl from Mongolia, which is how I knew that he had a connection,” Blakeslee said. “He connected me with a CU professor named Dr. (Will) Taylor, who is doing glacial ice melt archaeology out in Mongolia and just happened to be there the same time that I was.”
Blakeslee had not worked with a travel agent and had no specific connections in the country. “I just showed up there without any trips booked or anything like that,” he said. “I just had some sites I wanted to see and (would figure out) how I could get there.”
His contact put Blakeslee in touch with Taylor, “and basically I was like, ‘I don't have any plans; I'd be happy to volunteer,’” Blakeslee said. “He was kind of unsure, not knowing me, and said, ‘If you can meet us out in Bayan-Ölgii, then we'll see if we have a spot for you on the project.’”
Blakeslee said the 36-hour bus ride from the capital Ulaanbaatar, or UB, was “quite a life experience,” with its hairpin curves on mountain trails and vast, grassy steppe on a bus with no restroom. “Mongolia has just got a lot of space, and … a lot of dirt roads,” he said. “It's just a long way – a majority of the way across the country – but I got out there and ended up joining the project.”
While he was there, he lived in a ger (pronounced “gear”), which is similar to a yurt. His newly found group bought a sheep to eat from a local family and washed their hands in a river. “It was pretty rustic,” Blakeslee said. “We were hiking up this mountain to pick up artifacts that had melted out of a glacier. Two-thousand-year-old arrows – intact – would just be melted out of the ice where (ancient Mongolians) had hunted there.”
There is so much more to this story. To read more, click the button below. Blakeslee’s progress can be followed on his Mongolian Prosthetics website, his Facebook page and Instagram page.
Elizabeth School District is opening a Childcare Care Center for our community:
Infant care: ages six weeks through 18 months
Toddler care: ages 18 months through two and a half
Each classroom will have a 1:5 caregiver-to-child ratio
Capacity of 10 children in each classroom
Center will be licensed for 20 children
Currently the center will run through the school-year calendar. With interest, we will extend through summer.
Send all questions and inquiries to: Karena Dohman, director of early childhood
The Elizabeth Education Foundation partners with Elizabeth School District in numerous ways throughout the year to support students and teachers. This volunteer-led, independent fundraising foundation provides scholarships for graduating seniors, classroom grants for teachers, and the STARS Awards for outstanding citizenship among students.
Learn more about the EEF at its website.
American Furniture Warehouse maintains a year-round opportunity to help Elizabeth Schools anytime you buy home furnishings.
When you check out at any AFW location, just mention "Elizabeth Schools" or the Partner ID, EC1SD, and AFW will donate 2% of the purchase to the Elizabeth Education Foundation. Additionally, anything purchased of the Beautyrest, Serta or Simmons brands results in an additional 2%. This includes online orders, too.
See the attached flier for more details.