Learning how to play the saxophone paid off as it provided for her college education.
Erica Lorenz started playing piano at an early age and then picked up the saxophone when she was in fifth grade.
“I grew up in a music household,” Erica said. “My dad sang and played in a country band as I was growing up.”
However, since then, the saxophone has just collected dust.
“I have literally opened the saxophone case one time since I graduated from college,” Erica said. “College will burn you out pretty quickly, and after four years, I was burned out for sure.”
She added that there’s not a huge demand for a saxophone player, but she has kept up on the piano.
“I play piano for church,” Erica said.
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Erica was born and raised in the middle of Kansas.
“I grew up in a town of about 50 people,” she said. “When you grow up in a town that small, you’re related to a majority of them typically. I had a graduating class of 16 and four of us were cousins.”
She met her husband, Josh, while they were both working at Maranatha Bible Camp in Maxwell. That connection eventually brought them together as well as to North Platte.
“I grew up in Kansas, and he grew up in Denver,” Erica said. “So Kansas was my friends, Denver was his friends and North Platte is our friends because we actually met out at Maranatha.”
Erica said North Platte is a great fit for her family.
“With me growing up in a small town and him growing up in the city, North Platte is sort of a middle ground,” Erica said. “It’s not country like where I grew up, but it’s not city like Denver.”
They moved to North Platte a little more than seven years ago.
“Josh and I had been married about 5½ years, and we lived in Kansas for the first chunk of our marriage while he was in nursing school,” Erica said. “Then he got a job offer here in ICU and he has family here, so it kind of made sense for us to move here.”
Josh and Erica have three children.
“We have now been married 13 years,” Erica said. “We have two boys and a girl — Hunter, 12; Zachary, we call him ‘Zacky,’ is 10; and Emma is 8.”
Erica went to college at Baker University near Kansas City.
“It’s a smaller private university. I really enjoyed it,” Erica said. “I have a degree in exercise science. I never officially used it as an occupation, but paid for it.”
She currently works for Priority Medical and is an EMT.
“I really actually wanted to get my degree in nutrition ... and become a registered dietitian,” Erica said. “However, I chose getting married and having kids over a second degree.”
She managed an office products store and a jewelry store when they lived in Kansas.
“Towards the end of our time in Kansas, I decided to stay home and just raise the kids,” Erica said. “That led to me running a full-blown day care. All of our friends were like, ‘hey, you’re home, could you watch my kids.’ So, long story short, it ended up being a home day care.”
After taking care of kids 24/7 at the home day care, Erica said, she needed a break. She got that when they moved to North Platte, but it didn’t last long.
“I ended up taking about three months off and started doing day care here too for two years,” Erica said. “Then I quit that and worked out at Maranatha. That was kind of one of my dream jobs, kind of growing up out there, kind of being raised at camp, to go back and work.”
She decided to become an EMT and has been working in that capacity for the last year and a half.
She loves the convenience of living in North Platte.
“Honestly, it’s being able to drive across town in five minutes,” Erica said about living here. “When we were out in Denver, just going to Walmart literally takes me 20 minutes just to drive there, and it’s not that far away. I love being able to run to Walmart, or the kids and I can ride our bikes up to the hospital and eat supper with Josh.”
Erica said one place she has never been and would like to take her kids is Carhenge near Alliance.
”I was blessed to get to go to Stonehenge in England when I was in college, and I think it would be really cool to go over to Carhenge,” Erica said.
There is one thing about her that is not well known.
“I am a pastor’s kid, and not many Nebraska people know about that,” Erica said. “Of course, most Kansas people know, but not here.”