Students talk about inspiration Jon’s talent brought into their lives

Jon Lacina’s best friends, Drew Kaput and John Manly, describe him as a “rare breed” who touched their lives in a unique way.

Manly, who recently moved to California, will always remember Jon as his best friend, despite living thousands of miles apart.

“With Jon, I’ve never been able to relate to someone as much as I did him,” Manly said. “Me and Jon had a lot of odd things in common … he will always be my best friend.”

Manly and Jon met in day care, their family farms were adjacent to one another and they spent countless hours together creating art and playing video games. In high school, Manly, Kaput and another friend were a close foursome with Jon.

“He was my hero growing up,” Manly said.

With a rare taste in music, a bond for their love of art and video games and Jon’s taste for great food — sauerkraut cookies included — Manly said the four of them were incredibly close.

“Our best nights together were when we played video games and drank a few beers,” Manly said.

Kaput said they all worked at the movie theater together, and would spend those summer nights they weren’t working glued in front of a new video game, where no matter how many hours they could have played, Jon would pick up the controller without once playing and win.

Jon was extremely talented with his artwork, specializing in fantasy-incorporated drawings, character design, self-portraits and even food.

“Everything he touched that he used with his hands just turned to gold,” Kaput said.

This included the guitar, which Manly said was self-taught. Jon chose to pick up a guitar one weekend when his parents banned him from video games, and was musically talented ever since.

“He tried to teach me a few things on guitar, but I never came close to that,” Kaput said. “He is just an inspiration.”

Parker Peterson, junior in graphic design and Jon’s best friend in college, also remembers his incredible talent for everything he was passionate about, describing Jon as a continuous inspiration in his life.

“Jon is easily one of the most intelligent individuals I have ever met,” Peterson said.

Peterson and Jon were classmates in graphic design and were extremely close because of their love for art and video games. Peterson described Jon as a rare graphic designer who could rely on his sketches to get him through assignments. He was an artist, not a graphic designer, Peterson said.

If Peterson cold put a positive spin on losing his best friend, it would be that Jon will always be an inspiration in his graphic design work.

“It’s something that really inspired me to how good I really want to be at graphic design,” Peterson said. “You know, this is my future and I’ve found myself asking ‘What would Jon do in this situation?’”

Peterson will always remember Jon as a dependable friend, logical thinker and talented artist and musician.

Even those who don’t consider themselves as best friends with Jon will forever be impacted by his thoughtful, caring nature and love for art.

“He was a really creative guy and a lot of people looked up to him for that,” said Chelsea Evers, junior in graphic design and Jon’s classmate.

Evers said her relationship with Jon was mostly through their class, but she considers him a close friend because they spent six hours a week together in studio. He was quiet and introverted, but was always willing to help Evers with critique on assignments and issues with her computer.

“He had a good sense of humor and a good outlook on life,” Evers said.

This weekend was Jon’s funeral, and Kaput said the church was packed with people Jon knew and loved. Even friends that Jon hadn’t spoken to since high school were there.

“He’s definitely had a big impact on all of our lives and will always be in our hearts and our minds,” Peterson said.

Silent talents made Jon unique, loved

Jon Lacina’s family described him as an exceptionally talented artist and musician who was reluctant to showcase his own talents — only doing so for the enjoyment of others. His father said he had come into his own, but was still discovering himself — both as an artist and a young man.

Jon came from a creative family. His parents met at Wichita State University, where his father, Tom, studied music and his mother, Alesia, studied graphic design. His older brother, Joe, graduated from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2008.

Jon’s love of art stemmed from what Tom described as a “friendly time-out.” To keep their two young boys busy, Alesia would supply them with materials to draw and make crafts.

“There wasn’t a time, really, when they didn’t draw,” Tom said.

Often, Alesia would join Jon and Joe in their playtime activities. She remembers the boys making “huge Lego cities after school every day.”

Their childhood love of Legos never faded. In keeping with the brothers’ tradition, Joe gave Legos to Jon for Christmas less than a month before Jon disappeared.

Born just less than three years before his younger brother, Joe said the two were always best friends. Growing up on the 320-acre crop farm, Jon and Joe climbed trees, made forts and gave every tree a name. Joe recalled scaling “Home Base,” “King One” and “King Two.”

Jon’s talents spanned platforms, although his family agrees he didn’t like to show off.

After receiving a guitar from his uncle, Jon taught himself to play during his junior high years. The first song he learned was “Stairway to Heaven,” but beyond that and other rock standards, he would improvise blues and jazz.

Tom once accompanied Jon on the bass for a variety show, which he believes was the moment Jon realized he “could play pretty well.” Still, most of Jon’s performances were within the Lacina home. His family said he preferred not to be center stage, although he liked to play for others’ enjoyment.

When it came to video games, Jon was a force to be reckoned with. A “fearsome player,” Jon’s gaming prowess led him to victories nearly every time he played — whether he had put in hours of practice or he was just playing a game for the first time.

“He was like, too good,” Joe said, shaking his head and laughing as he recalled Jon’s exceptional “Halo” skills.

Joe said Jon could be found playing intense, violent games like “Halo,” one day, and “Harvest Moon,” a farm simulation game, the next. Alesia remembers him enjoying games that involved finding small objects.

“He liked small things,” Alesia said.

That appreciation of small things is evident in some of Jon’s artwork, particularly the piece “Pinecone Bear.” Jon especially enjoyed producing digital artwork, using a digital tablet. He had considered going to graduate school for video game design, or as Tom said, “supersizing” his time at Iowa State to pick up an English minor.

He liked languages, Alesia said, and loved Japanese and Korean culture. When Tom and Alesia visited Jon in Ames, they often went out for sushi. Food, including sushi, was often on Jon’s Christmas lists, and he especially liked hors d’oeuvres, his mother recalled.

Although he wasn’t a very talkative person, Tom and Alesia both kept in touch with Jon regularly, through e-mail and phone correspondence.

“He chose his words carefully, and was usually worth listening to when he spoke,” Tom said.

When his family discovered he was missing, they didn’t think he had run away. In the time before Jon’s body was found, Tom said they were “in some respects, in grieving for 10 weeks.”

The Lacinas said they share a deep appreciation for the police officers’ diligence, and say they have found tremendous support in the Grinnell and ISU communities.

“We embrace, intellectually, the notion that if Jon were here, he’d be hitting us over the head and saying, ‘Hey, live your lives,’” Tom said.

Emotionally, it’s much more difficult to accept.

“It’s something you never get over with,” Tom said.

Jon will be honored with an arts fund in his name, funded by the $10,000 reward his parents offered during the search. Joe, who currently works in Philadelphia as an artist, will return to Grinnell for the summer to direct an artist residency program through the Grinnell Area Arts Council.

Jon’s family will continue to remember the son and brother who had an impeccable memory for song lyrics and joke punch lines, whose singing talents were well-hidden and whose private nature helped him develop a few very deep, close friendships.

Moving forward, “we will live our lives and remember him for the value he brought to it, not for the absence,” Tom said.