Senior year exceptional for Josh Centanni Student one semester away from two associate degrees

by PAUL MORTON

Associate editor

Oberlin High School senior Josh Centanni has had a senior year many students only dream of, without spending much time at the high school.

Centanni finished his high school requirements early and spent his senior year taking classes at Lorain County Community College through the Post Secondary Enrollment Option program. He spent a week in the Caribbean in January, as he also did three summers ago, and earlier this month he participated in a debate, fulfilling a long-time dream.

He played on the boys soccer team at the high school. But his name was missing from the program at the awards dinner.

"I guess it was because I wasn't at the school," he said. "I was easy to forget."

Between classes he has taken at LCCC and Oberlin College, he is one semester short of earning, not one, but two associate degrees. And when he has finished at LCCC, he has been accepted for admission to his college of first choice.

With all of this going on, Centanni plays for worship bands at two churches -- Regent Christian Church, which meets at his home, and the Church on the North Coast youth group on Thursday nights. Those churches, in fact, are central to much of the rest of Centanni's activities.

The trips to the Caribbean were week-long missions trips to Haiti, sponsored by his two churches. The debate at the college center building at LCCC was on the existence or non-existence of God.

He said the idea for the debate came from reading the book "The Way of the Master," by Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron, which teaches Christians how to tell others about Jesus. One of the suggestions in the book was to hold a debate at a local college.

"I had that in the back of my mind, and one day at LCCC in the Collegian, the college newspaper there, they had an article about Campus Activists for Atheism," Centanni said. "So I read the article, and it said they were looking to debate Campus Crusade for Christ. So I contacted their president and said I'm not Campus Crusade for Christ, but I'm a Christian, and I'd like to debate anyway."

The debate on May 2 pitted Centanni and fellow Christian Jordan Ladikos against atheists Aaron Weaver and Christopher Burns. Robert Beckstrom, dean of the division of arts and humanities at LCCC moderated.

"I wasn't expecting too many people to show up, but at least 90 people were there, and because it was the college center mall, there were other people coming and going," Centanni said. "It was really incredible. I think we did really well. We were able to present the gospel. This is Christ and him crucified. That was our goal in the debate."

He said the debate was good practice for his future profession. He plans to attend Moody Bible Institute in Chicago to prepare to be a minister.

But he might not be preaching so vocally in the cafeteria at LCCC after receiving a letter from the college. He said at one point this year he stood on a chair in the cafeteria and began "open-air preaching" until a college security officer asked him to stop.

"I said give me a rule that I'm breaking or something that I'm doing wrong," he said. "And in talking with the security officer and then talking with the dean, they never really provided 'Here's the rule and you're breaking it.' It was 'It's just not nice to do that, and we had a complaint.' Well, if I complained that someone is eating cheese... There's really no reason."