Jason (Jay) Araujo, class of 1987, thinks of the high school as one of the best times in his life because it was fun, and he felt such a sense of community there. Jay had to carve out time to play football — his passion — because he was working after school at the SBS Grain Store.
At the high school, college was the expected next step. Jay applied and was accepted to Bridgewater State. However, he had absolutely no idea what he was going to do there. He did not have a passion for anything except football. He did make the football team, but it just wasn’t the same as at MVRHS, because it lacked the sense of family and community that he had experienced here. He majored in physical education, planning on becoming a teacher. He continued to drive trucks in summer on the Vineyard to pay for his schooling. He met great friends at Bridgewater, and he learned a lot. However, once he heard the salaries of teachers, he realized that he was making more money driving a truck on the Island. Wasn’t something wrong if a teacher made less than Jay was already making? He left college and returned to driving trucks on the Vineyard because it just didn’t make sense to stay in college and accrue more debt. By this time, he had met the love of his life, Kristen, and that gave him even more reason to be on the Island.
He drove trucks and also deejayed at high school dances. He became well-known and was offered more events to deejay on the Island. He built a life for himself between driving trucks, working for his family in septic business, and deejaying. However, as he says it, “the music changed” — becoming more hip-hop, and so deejaying, for him, phased out. He decided that he now had kids and needed a full-time profession. He refinanced his house and purchased a septic truck, and developed Jay’s Septic Service. He especially credits his wife, Kristen, who has made all the difference in his life, and he is so very proud of his two sons. He and Kristen both work hard in their respective careers, but they have begun to build an off-Island family getaway in Maine, and that has been a welcome change from the never-ending work that they both do on the Island. Thank you, Jay, for the service that you and your son, Trey, provide by taking our waste off-Island in that huge septic truck. I’m not sure that we Islanders truly appreciate all that that work entails, so thank you.
Marge Harris was a teacher at MVRHS for 27 years. You can contact her at margeharris@comcast.net. This column appears twice a month.
