Nicholas
Stewart
Software developer at
VIA Studio in Louisville,
specializing in nonprofit
organizations such as
the Kentucky Refugee
Ministry and the
Louisville Waterfront
Single best thing about being
involved — living and working
— in Southern Indiana:
Southern Indiana is an area of
positive growth and an area of great
opportunity — there are no limits on
what you can do here. I recently sold
my house in New Albany and had job
offers across the country, but chose a
house in Jeffersonville because I love
the area and what it represents. In the
last three years I’ve been all over the
world — Singapore, Israel, Jordan,
Germany, France, England, Spain,
Sweden — and all over the United
States and every time I cross the Ohio
River, I’m glad to be home and can’t
imagine myself living anywhere else.
How has the coronavirus out-
break impacted your life most
and what will you tell future
generations about COVID-19
from your perspective?
I have been lucky and not had a
family member diagnosed with it or
had any family members (or myself)
lose their jobs to it. The most I can
say that COVID-19 has affected
my life is that it has canceled all the
wrestling-related practices/events/
activities, which are a big part of my
everyday life. We were in the middle
of our city-wide elementary league,
34
May / June 2020
about to go into our off-season Freestyle
and Greco season, and our normal summer
workouts. All these have been canceled,
for good measure, so at the moment we are
doing workouts over social media and soon
to be having live Zoom workouts since we
need to maintain some sort of contact with
the kids.
It has made it a challenge to have a con-
tact sport in a time of no contact, but if that’s
the biggest problem I have at the moment,
I’m doing pretty well!
I would tell future generations that
COVID-19 was a situation that was unlike
any in recent memory — it was a pandemic
that affected everyone in some manner but
still had a level of normalcy, which made it
surreal. For instance, after a hurricane, the
post office was destroyed and you knew you
were in the thick of it, but with COVID you
can still go to the post office. You make sure
you’re standing on the X, marked six feet
apart, there is a plastic sheet between you
and the front desk worker, and the staff all
look like they are ready for biowar — you
are in survival mode but you’re not, at the
same time.
It reaffirmed the need for not always liv-
ing on credit, having a savings built up, and
have a general level of preparedness.