Midterm-Jonny Schank

The sky is the limit for Jonathon Schanke; at age 4 he laced up his first pair of hockey skates, at age 14 he taught himself to play the guitar and at age 21 he piloted his first plane.

Today Schanke is playing center for the University of Oklahoma hockey team, playing live at the Deli on Campus Corner and working towards his pilot license.

“Of the three, I get the most nervous before hockey games,” Schanke said. “This is my last year playing competitive ice hockey so just trying to take it all in. I don’t let myself get nervous before I fly and I think of playing the guitar as a fun event. It’s exciting I like to make peoples’ ears happy. A couple whiskey and cokes help me get in the zone.”

Schanke plays on the first Wednesday of every month when the Deli has open mic night. He has played there four times.

“At the Deli I play two songs that I wrote myself,” Schanke said. “Next month my brother Joel will be up there playing bass with me.

The Schanke brothers grew up playing hockey and the guitar together in Wallingford, CN.

“I’m excited to be on stage with my brother,” Joel Schanke said. “I’m a little nervous, but not as nervous as I’ll be the first time he flies me around.”

OU’s aviation program flies out of the Max Westheimer Airport where Schanke flies single-engine Piper Warrior planes.

“My first flight was like drinking water out of a fire house,” Schanke said. “It was the first time I’d ever been in a plane there was so much going on I didn’t know what to think. But it’s gotten a lot easier, I soloed for the first time in September.”

(SLIDESHOW, Emma Kittle, 1:35)