User:Thetruth2001/sandbox/Erik Bentler

Erik Jerome Bentler, born March 8, 2001, lives in Scranton, Pennsylvania, USA. He takes part in art design, both digital and physical, as well as electronic music production. He is currently in college, majoring in digital design & media arts. He plans to eventually open his own amusement park called "Bentler Park". He plans for it to be in the local area to which he lives.

Early Life
Erik was born on March 8, 2001 at 6:21pm EST at Moses Taylor Hospital in Scranton, PA to Jerome Francis Bentler and Melissa Holmes-Bentler. He was born via C-Section, weighing 10.1 pounds (4.58 kilograms). His family moved around quite a bit, only ever living in Scranton for all of Erik's life except for one time, when they lived in Factoryville, PA. Erik recalls this house from both pictures and a faint memory of an inflatable McDonald's restaurant with inflatable food items. After only a few short months, Erik's family moved again, back to Scranton, into an upstairs apartment.

It was while living at this house that his sister was born. On March 10, 2004 at 8:21am EST, Emily Joan Bentler was born, also at Moses Taylor Hospital. Also like her brother, she was born C-Section, weighing 10.2 pounds (4.63 kilograms). Another ironic similarity is that they both share the same initials (EJB).

School Years
In the fall of 2004, Erik was able to start 3-year-old pre-school at Bancroft Elementary in Scranton. He was excited to go to school and make new friends, contrary from the kids and them having to leave their parents. He sometimes notes the fact that his classroom still had a record player. There was a big table for snacking near the front of the room and toys in the back. He originally had Ms. Marybeth, but she went to a different school...and was replaced by Ms. Ellen.
 * Starting School

After a while of being in school, it was discovered that Erik was still wearing pull-ups, and there was a rule that all students needed to be potty trained. Thus, he wasn't allowed to return to school until he was so. This made Erik anxious to get trained and go back to school. He seemed to be enjoying it, especially with his new best friend Ericka. He eventually left again, however, as it is known that the gym teacher at the time yelled at him, but it is unknown what for.

After 4-year-old pre-school, Erik transferred to John F. Kennedy Elementary School in Scranton for Kindergarten. This was due to the fact that it was closer (just a few blocks from his house). The reason he hadn't gone here before was because this school didn't offer a pre-school program. This school was very small at the time, and Erik's classroom was shared with the library. His teacher, Mrs. Madura, was highly despised by both Erik and his mother. They did not like her at all. This is another instance of unknown reason, but he knows it was indeed so.
 * Kindergarten at a New School

Erik's time in the small Kennedy school building itself was short, as they began renovating the school to make it much larger. During these renovations, some classes had to be moved to the St. Mary's building on Pittston Ave, where Erik spent the rest of kindergarten. He believes that the other class, that of Mrs. Phillips, stayed in the original building. He doesn't know where her room was, but he assumes it wasn't changed much during the renovations, so they weren't disturbed. His class had to move because the room he was in was being turned into the main office. The library was moved to a much larger, brand new space across from the new cafeteria. The old cafeteria was across from his classroom, and was turned into the music and art rooms. This is evident from the high ceilings.

The following school year, Erik returned to Bancroft for school because now his sister, Emily was starting pre-school there. Erik attended Bancroft for 1st and 2nd grade, with Ms. Orlando and Mrs. Gayletts (respectively) as his teachers. He recalls winning a stuffed sheep from 2nd grade, which he named Silky.
 * Back to Bancroft

At the end of the year 2nd grade, Erik remembers going upstairs and talking with the 3rd grade teacher about something. He recalls liking her and being excited to have her the following year. However, that's not what happened.

Instead of continuing at Bancroft, as Emily finished pre-school there, both kids moved to Kennedy, again for Erik and for the first time for Emily. It was at this school that Erik completed his "elementary school" years, with one of his favorite teachers, Mrs. Robinson, teaching 3rd grade, Mr. Reagan teaching 4th, and Mrs. Krieger teaching 5th. He especially recalls Mr. Reagan having a "that was easy" button from Staples.
 * Back to the New and Improved Kennedy

After graduating from 5th grade, Erik was originally going to go to South Scranton Intermediate School. However, due to the concerns of his parents, he was instead sent to All Saints Academy in West Scranton. Starting this school in 6th grade, he knew nobody, but he was quickly able to make many good friends, some of which he still is in contact with today. There was only person in his class he knew, and he left after that first year.
 * Catholic School

Many of the students he met here ended up going to the same high school as him, however not all of them stayed there.

After graduating from 8th grade at All Saints, Erik then went to Holy Cross High School in Dunmore, PA where he graduated in the class of 2019.
 * High School

After searching for colleges and majors during high school, Erik applied to four colleges, all of which accepted him. He ended up choosing Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, PA.
 * College

Below is a chart showing the places Erik and his classes went for field trips during school. He went some places multiple times, while other times he went to multiple places in one year. Note that the below chart does not include retreats taken during the Catholic school years, as they were mostly to the same place, nor does it include plays that the classes went to see.
 * Field Trips

Artworks
Starting from early on in his life, Erik has been very involved with art, mostly drawing. He started off with stick figures and copying artwork of Pokémon. He also often drew images of Hersheypark on the way there, though many of these have not been found. He later progressed to attempting to make a stick figure comic book called "Roboman". The first volume was made, and while a sequel was started, it is unknown if it was ever finished.

During art classes in school, Erik has created many notable pieces, some of which have won awards. The earliest piece still on display (in his bedroom) is a colorful banner made of sewn-together strings from approximately 5th grade. Other pieces on display include many artworks created during sophomore year of high school. These include a colored pencil drawing of downtown Scranton entitled "The Electric City", a colored drawing of his favorite things about summer, a reflection piece showing the difference between light and dark, a piece featuring strips of different types of paper with different mediums put together making one image, and his masterpiece of the year, "Hersheypark Yarn'd", an image of Hersheypark's mascots with the Carousel behind them and Skyrush over the trees. This piece won Honorable Mentions at the school's art show that year.

During this past school year, Erik was part of Holy Cross' Digital Photography class, in which he created many digital pieces. Some notable works of these include "Where I'd Rather Be", in which Erik is holding open his blazer jacket to reveal an image of Hersheypark, "Hersheypark Wheel", which won Honorable Mentions, "Radio City", which won 1st Place, and his favorite of the year, "Modern Colors", a series of 9 portraits of himself in different colors, similar to Andy Warhol's Marilyn Diptych.

In addition to artwork in class, Erik has had time to make random drawings in his many sketchbooks throughout the years. It was in these sketchbooks that Erik created many original characters. As of 2020, there are more than 130 characters.
 * Original Characters

In addition to these characters, Erik has also begun designing his own Fakemon region called the Nepaa region, based off of the area he lives around in northeast Pennsylvania. His goal is to design 120 original Pokemon, as well as gym leaders, a rival, a friend, an enemy team, and a region professor. As of now, there are 57 created, but only about 45 have been drawn.
 * The Nepaa Region

Should this region be featured as a game, the version titles would be Glorious Day and Haunting Night.

Other Events
The following are some interesting events/trivia from Erik's life that are either often told or are stories to remember. They all actually happened.

For Erik's 8th birthday, his family surprised him by taking him to Great Wolf Lodge for the first time. Not knowing where he was going, Erik originally planned on wearing a Jcpenney sticky note from his mother's work on his forehead with "Hi, I'm eight" written on it. It was here that he encountered the MagiQuest game and the indoor water park. One of the elements of this water park were water sprayers that looked like umbrellas with water coming out of the top and coming down on all sides.
 * The Glass Table Story

The following summer, Erik and his sister tried to recreate their water park experience with the umbrella that was in their back yard at their outdoor table, which had a glass tabletop. In the area that it was, right next to it was a retaining wall separating his yard from his neighbor's yard. To recreate the previously described "water umbrella", Erik climbed up onto the wall with a cup and their garden hose. He would fill the cup and dump it on the umbrella several times before realizing that this would be more effective if he just sprayed the hose directly on the umbrella, without the cup. He did this for a few seconds before his sister, in her youth and ignorance, pulled on the hose and Erik fell off the wall and went through the glass table, shattering it.

Miraculously, he only suffered bleeding elbows and knees, and a piece of glass in his foot. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the table, which was discarded after having it around with the plan to replace the top with wood or another material.

Discography

 * Studio Albums
 * Handiwork
 * Master DJ
 * All I Want Is Love
 * Corrupted
 * Welcome to The Future
 * Absolution


 * EPs
 * A Little Different
 * Format?
 * When In Quarantine
 * Out of Line


 * Singles
 * Carbon
 * Can't Catch Me
 * Welcome Back to The Future
 * Sad Boi Hours
 * Ice