Grant Niedzinski, a Senior at the University of Detroit Jesuit High School and Academy, made it his mission to collect every single lanyard in UDJ history. 

 It all started Sophomore year in Mr. Devine’s art class when Grant and Mr. Devine switched lanyards for fun. Everyone in the building is required to always wear a lanyard, but different colors signify different positions. So for example, you can always tell who’s in what grade by looking at the color of their lanyard. At the end of the day, Grant never gave his lanyard back, so “he wore my lanyard for the rest of the year. Any photo you find will have that one on.” 

 From there, Grant decided that he would collect all the other lanyards. He easily got the Academy, cub for a day, and the upperclassman lanyards by asking current students for extras, so he figured he had them all. That’s when he realized that his job wasn’t done. “I remember the day they released the new cub for a day lanyard – the skinny one. I was enraged.” He managed to get the lanyard from a Cub while he was leaving, but even when he found that one, he again found out there was a different one that he didn’t have. Every lanyard has several variations, some of which hadn’t been worn for years. “Every time I thought I had all of them, I discovered a different one existed.” 

 But this realization didn’t dissuade Grant from his quest to get every lanyard. He went all around the school, making it his mission to get every single one. “The more momentum the project gained, the more people were willing to help.” 

 After getting almost all of them, he came to his hardest problem yet: the original faculty lanyard. Mr. Z challenged him, “you don’t have it, I bet you can’t get it.” Grant asked every adult that might be able to help him, from teachers, to administrators, to janitors, and no one had any clue of where he could find this lanyard. He followed the bread trail and eventually learned that he needed to talk to Mr. O’Keefe, the Head of Archives in the Jesuit Residence. Usually, the JR is off-limits to students, but Grant’s dedication took him on untrodden paths to the far corners of the school. He set up a meeting with him in the Jesuit Residence, and there it was, in all its glory, right there on the table. “It must be at least 45 years old,” Grant said, “this is before students even wore lanyards.” 

 In total, he collected 20 unique lanyard variations, getting help from 5 separate adults at UDJ. Now he’s convinced he has them all, so he’s moving on to other UDJ items. “Once I finished this project, I realized I wanted to keep going, so I got a faculty parking pass and started a U of D to-do list… I got to go on the roof, archives, who knows what stuff I can get into. The next thing on my list is a deactivated key fob. Br. Boynton said he would give me one. I continue to look for U of D items I can bring in.” This winter, Grant is planning on working for Mr. O’Keefe in the archives, finding more UDJ history.  

 Shenanigans like this are what makes UDJ special. Extraordinary students find ways to express themselves and have fun in different ways. “Whenever I’m asked about what I like about UDJ, I always say the culture… The faculty will partner with you to do these things that only happen at UDJ… We have a willingness to be unique.”