Despite blowing the crowd away with his rendition of “Piano Man” by Billy Joel at last year’s Talent Show, senior Nate Arch can hardly be classified as just that. 

Rather, Arch–known as “Narch” by his peers–is a foreign language extraordinare, a powerhouse performer, and a conscientious leader. 

The beginnings of his favorite activities–performing and learning different languages–can be traced back to his musical family. 

“All of us had to play the violin and piano every day. I hated it. All of us hated it. It was actually the worst thing ever. I was always jealous of my siblings because they were doing the hardest pieces,” said Arch.

Despite his initial annoyances caused by being the youngest of five, Arch looks back fondly at the memories of him and his siblings “always singing around.”

“My love for music definitely came out of hate,” Arch said. 

Used to surrounding himself with a community of musicians, Arch eagerly joined Talent Show his sophomore year, performing back-up vocals to an act otherwise composed of seniors. After learning the ropes in 2024, Arch became fully invested in last year’s show, participating in five acts when the normal limit is three. 

“I loved doing last year’s show, and it was really fun to get to know people in my groups…The stress almost made it more enjoyable and impressive because everyone got their stuff together so well,” said Arch.

This year, Talent Show sponsor Mr. Corey Holmer said that Arch was “an easy pick” for Stage Director.

“He embodies someone that’s energetic, a leader, and willing to help new students, but not just certain students: he’s all about bringing everyone in… he’s for everyone. That’s why everyone loves Narch: he’s friendly, he’s outgoing, he’s passionate, and he’s just an old soul,” said Mr. Holmer. 

And while Arch heavily commits to Talent Show during its month-long rehearsals, he’s largely devoted his time at LFHS to mastering foreign languages. As usual for Arch, it started with a song. 

“My love for Spanish sparked the first time I heard ‘Bailando’ by Enrique Iglesias and it was just a banger,” said Arch.

A couple of years later when COVID occurred, he felt that St. Mary’s–the middle school he attended–didn’t offer strong foreign language courses online. As a result, Arch’s sister, who happened to be taking high school level Spanish, taught him a few things.

“My sister taught me how to conjugate verbs for a week: best lessons I ever had. It was mind blowing how much easier a language could be with proper grammar structures and an enjoyable instructor, and I just realized that I did enjoy Spanish. I liked communicating with people,” said Arch.

Once the spark was lit, it never flamed out. Arch’s love for Spanish brought him to Señora Marni Lev’s Spanish Two class in his freshman year, and he was “such a voracious language learner” that he was moved up to Spanish 3H his sophomore year.

His level bump-up wasn’t the end of his language advancements, however. Noticing that he had a free elective slot, Arch decided to add Latin to his courseload. 

“I realized I could take another language, so I chose Latin. It’s really interesting because it’s not anything like Spanish, except for the roots,” said Arch. “I was really confused, but then I felt that same feeling I had gotten during COVID when I first learned how to conjugate. It was like a whole new world.”

And if you thought Arch would stop there, think again. After discussing the possibility with Señora Lev and the World Language Department Head Mr. Stephen Dunn, Arch received the go ahead to add a third language to his courseload his junior year: French. As a senior, Arch is currently taking AP Spanish, AP Latin, and French 3H.

“He just has such a strong natural ability and passion, and those two things make the most incredible language learner,” said Señora Lev. “He has always checked in the past couple of years…It’s an absolute joy to have a kid like him in class. He has such a promising future in language: he could be a polyglot, which is someone who speaks a lot of languages. He totally has the capability and commitment to studying and he could do a lot in the world.”

The polyglot goal is certainly attainable for Arch, as his main priority is “fluency over quantity.” Rather than learning some phrases from many languages, he wants to learn the intricacies of French, Latin, and Spanish first, and him being a part of each of those languages’ National Honor Societies certainly helps.

“One of the things that our school does really well is cultural clubs. They really teach the culture,” said Arch. “In Spanish National Honor Society they recently showed us Spanish news, and that was really cool. I find that it’s hard to get that cultural perspective in Lake Forest alone, so having a community to learn about that stuff [in language national honor societies] is really interesting.”

With his language skills, Arch plans to serve others in the future and communicate with people from all different backgrounds: he intends to major in International Studies or Linguistics when he attends college. Thankfully, Arch already has loads of experience helping others. Along with being a volunteer coach for St. Mary’s’ track team, he’s also the President of National Honor Society (NHS), the largest student organization at LFHS.

“In terms of presidents I’ve worked with before, he is one of the best by far,” said Mr. Holmer, who is also the sponsor for NHS. “He’s organized and on top of things. He’s a good team leader among the other members of the executive board. And he’s just good: he communicates, he’s energetic, and he tries to bring new ideas. You can tell he truly cares about it…he’s great to have in that leadership role.”

Motivated by his passions for service, language, and performing, Arch is a community member who is keen on venturing down new paths to see where they take him. Wherever his journey leads him, he is well-equipped to communicate with those alongside the road.