He is quirky, intelligent, some might even go as far to say eccentric. He once put windshield wipers in his school binder “just for fun.” He is an enigma, a man marching to his own beat. He is the most interesting man in the world.   

Whether you know him by name or not, you’ve probably seen Shane Stewart — or, to be accurate, you’ve probably seen his gloriously disorganized heap of a binder.  

Some kids may live messy lives in the seclusion of their bedrooms, but they close the door, head to school, and at least fake having their lives together. Stewart, on the other hand, hides his mess for no one.  And that, I learned in a recent interview that plumbed the depths of this labyrinthine phenomenon, is a virtuous and respectable quality.  

The peculiar senior has been utilizing this binder system since 7th grade and says he will never stop, even though his parents “just don’t understand me and my art.”  

During my examination of this misunderstood visionary, he conceded that his binder “is a mess, but it works.” He added, “It’s easy and organized. Everything is set up by subject and the old papers get torn up and cushion the new papers so they stay crisp.”  

Stewart may find his system nothing especially entertaining, but teachers are typically amused to behold such chaos. Our young man has had teachers stop him in the halls and interrogate him point blank. Others have asked to pet, stroke, inspect, and sometimes even take pictures of it.  

“I like it when teachers and students pet my binder like it’s a petting zoo,” Stewart said. “My binder is a great conversation starter.”  

But not all of NASH’s esteemed faculty has approached Stewart’s tumultuous three-ring calamity with amusement.

“Madam Good went down to the GOAL Office and told me to sit down in front of the GOAL teachers and clean it out,” Stewart explained. Last year, Mr. Fellers, a proudly minimalistic man, simply gave up on his efforts to reform the young man after realizing the proportions to which the disarray had grown.

But our young rebel, a dangerous man of strong will and conviction, most vividly recalls NAI’s Mr. McClelland’s reaction.

“He felt bad for me and wanted to help,” Stewart said. “So the day before Christmas break, I come into class and sitting upon my desk is a ratchet strap he’d bought for me. The ratchet strap broke after two weeks of use from the weight and thickness of my binder.  

“But I still used it and tied the remains to the straps on my backpack,” our hero continued. “So now my binder was drooping and swinging around from my backpack until one day it swung four feet, releasing a cataclysmic amount of papers. My poor binder was left in shambles.”  

Always one to improve upon past performance, Stewart has since pioneered a cutting-edge breakthrough in binder stability — wrapping a laptop mouse cord around the holy mess.   

Mr. Stewart has gone through many binders over the years, as our slideshow showcases. He puts the “binder carcasses” in his “binder museum” in his bedroom closet, naturally.

We must never forget that during the darkest of times in high school, longing for a meager six hours of sleep, drowning in school work, exhausted beyond recognition, Shane Stewart can be found traipsing the halls, proudly lugging that unruly mound of commotion.  

As NAI’s Mr. Geibel aptly remarked, “I marveled at Shane’s binder.  I found it to be controlled chaos mixed with meticulous record keeping.  It was a thing of beauty, really.”