For his future, Jack Fojut has his eyes on the sky and space, as he dreams of being an aerospace engineer and designing rockets and jets. For the past four years as a student at Georgetown Preparatory School in North Bethesda, Maryland, he’s had a down-to-earth impact there, culminating in his receiving the Gregory Gannon ’68 Service Award for his commitment to Christian service.
A member of the class of 2025 at Georgetown Prep, Fojut is joining the Navy and will be attending Texas A&M University on an ROTC scholarship. He hopes to study aerospace engineering there and become a naval aviator.
While at Prep, Fojut cofounded an Aeronautics Club there with fellow student Nicholas Quianzon.
“I’ve always liked planes and rockets,” he said. “…After my time in the Navy, I want to work in an aerospace company designing rockets or jets.”
Explaining his interest in that field, he said, “It’s like pushing boundaries and limits. I’ve been inspired by SpaceX and the revolutionary things they’ve done.” He added, “I like space a lot. I’m a huge ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Star Trek’ fan.”
The New Jersey native is 18 and is the son of John and Annie Fojut, and he has a younger brother, Daniel, who is a seventh grader. The family attends St. Timothy Parish in Chantilly, Virginia. Over the years, his father has been stationed stateside and overseas while serving in the Navy and for the U.S. State Department, and Jack Fojut has been a resident student at Georgetown Prep while attending the school.
“It’s a very unique experience,” Jack Fojut said of living in a residence hall there, which he said is like “one big family.” He joked that “the commute is easy. You can wake up 20 minutes before school starts and head to class.”
During his years at Prep, Fojut ran on the track and cross country teams. His favorite classes there included Honors and Advanced Placement Physics; a Theology I class, where he studied Jesus’s parables; an AP European history class; and an English III class where he studied “Beowulf.” Fojut, who likes fantasy stories, said “reading that epic poem was fun.”
In the school’s German program, he studied that language and the country’s culture and history. A German diplomat talked to students about the Berlin Wall. Fojut noted how his German teacher, Frau (Mrs.) Erika McGinn, made him a traditional German apple cake for his birthday when he was a sophomore. Another highlight came when Fojut joined fellow Prep students on a school trip to Germany in the summer before his senior year. They explored landmarks in the Munich and Bavarian area and in other parts of the country.
Fojut and a few more students stayed five extra days in Germany, where one of their activities included volunteering at a retirement home there. One day they pushed the elderly residents in their wheelchairs to get them ice cream in the village.
“That was a big hill. It was a huge challenge to push them back up,” Fojut joked.
That service to others has marked his years at Georgetown Prep, even when he was not on campus. While visiting family in Wisconsin one summer, he helped out at Katy’s Kloset, an outreach that provides medical equipment and supplies like wheelchairs to elderly and sick people at no cost.
As a Prep student, Fojut also volunteered at Martha’s Table, which provides food to the homeless and poor in Washington; and at the Christ Child Society’s Opportunity Shop in Georgetown, where antiques are sold to raise funds for that Catholic group’s outreach to young mothers and to students. He cheered on Special Olympics athletes at a bowling event, and he participated in the Guadalupe Society, the pro-life group at Prep that organizes trips to the annual March for Life and raises money for the Gabriel Project’s outreach to women facing crisis pregnancies and their children.
Fojut was also an altar server at school, which he said provided him with “a whole new perspective on the Mass” and helped him appreciate it more, and he served as a lector at the Friday morning Masses on campus, which he said increased his confidence in public speaking.
Receiving the Greg Gannon service award at Prep “meant a lot to me,” Fojut said.
The Georgetown Prep senior said he appreciated the Jesuit school’s emphasis on “finding God in all things.”
His Theology IV World Religions and Spirituality class, he said, emphasized the importance of discernment in making the right decisions in life. “A lot of it is trusting in God,” he said.
As his June 6 graduation day approached, Fojut reflected on his years at the school and what lies ahead for him. “One thing I’ll take away is the brotherhood (here). You can’t do things by yourself… You need your friends along the way,” he said, adding that will be true for him as he moves on to college, the Navy and his eventual career.
