Evan Larkin, a Junior Philosophy and Russian Studies Major from Northfield, MN, has an interesting story about how he began his student career at Gustavus. Evan initially applied to Gustavus among several other private schools and he received a rejection letter. The rejection letter, surprisingly, is what made him want to come to Gustavus, and he was determined to be accepted.

Evan’s plan was to continually send e-mails to the Dean of Students to get his attention. He ended up getting an interview, and a few days later he received an acceptance letter.

Evan chose to take a year off after he graduated from high school. He spent part of the year working as a camp counselor at the YMCA Camp Manito-Wish in Boulder Junction, WI. He led week-long wilderness trips and also taught guitar and drum lessons.

Music is Evan’s passion. He loves listening to music, playing music and talking about music. During his year off, he was a roadie for the band Skittish, which is a group he is trying to get to play at Gustavus. “I saw a lot of [the] country. Although I wasn’t paid, I had a lot of fun doing it for the experience,” Evan said.

Evan has another hidden talent: he plays online poker, and has won big in online tournements. He is ranked in the top 100 players in Minnesota and won $4000 in just one tournement. Poker is in his blood: he learned from his father, who has played poker all his life, and his parents were married in Las Vegas.

Evan has a wide range of interests on-campus as well, but has slowly been led to his major through his life experiences. “That I have been heading towards philosophy ever since high school, it was actually the obvious choice,” Evan said.

In high school, Evan directed a play called Waiting for Godot, and once he was done directing it he deconstructed the play from an existentialist point of view. He compiled his information into a paper and presented his findings twice before he graduated high school.

Evan also chose to add a Russian studies major because of the enthusiasm shown in the class Russian 1, which he took with Russian Language and Literature Professor Denis Crnkovic, who is also the director of the Russian language and area studies program.

Evan is involved in a wide variety of organizations on campus, ranging from being the internal manager of KGSM to being a member of the juggling club.

Evan became involved in KGSM his first year at Gustavus and has continued disc jockeying. The current show he is involved in on KGSM is called The Emma Squire Show with Evan Larkin.
“We play random independent music and talk about things that entertain our audiences,” Evan said.

Evan also is on the Swing Club leadership team. Evan was not always so fond of dancing; he described himself as having a social phobia of dancing, but he made himself go during his first year to help overcome his phobia.

“I forced myself to go. Once I learned how to dance it made it easier to let people see me dancing,” Evan said.

A member of the juggling club, where he has learned how to juggle balls and pins, Evan is working on mastering his unicycle skills. He can currently unicycle about six feet before he falls off.

Evan Larkin is a friendly face around campus, and he likes to share his experiences with others.
“[Evan] likes to tell stories a lot. I know from being around him a lot because he tells stories to new people he meets,” Junior Physics and Spanish Major Annie Kleinschmidt said.

So if you haven’t heard of some of the activities he is involved in, like the Juggling Club, Swing Club and KGSM, Evan would be a great person to talk to, in order to learn more about them.