black peral

Travis Koch grew up in the rural town of Brandon, Wis., with nothing much to do and nowhere to go.

“There was never anything to do before I had a car,” Koch said. “There was nowhere to go and nothing to do living out in the middle of nowhere like I did.”

Koch remembered watching horror movies as a youngster at his grandmother’s house with his uncle. To this day, Koch does not eat bananas because of a scene he saw that the villain, Jason, stabbed a woman in the neck while she was eating a banana. The woman proceeded to cough up the banana, and Koch has steered clear of the fruit ever since.

Although he lived what he called a “sheltered life” in a small community, Koch formed close bonds with his friends and was very active in sports. He was involved in football land track for four years, and basketball for two. He parlayed his high school track prowess into a collegiate pastime, participating in the track team at his college for two and a half years, the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh.

Koch hung up his track shoes and turned his focus to academics at UW-Oshkosh where he double-majored in history and journalism. He met his girlfriend one month ago at the French Quarter, a local bar near the UW-O campus. In his spare time, Koch likes to watch football on Sundays and play first-person shooter video games.

Koch still won’t eat those bananas.