Middle school can be hard enough for your average student, and barely knowing any English makes it even harder. Between changing in the locker room, dealing with puberty and developing your first crushes, it is a complicated time for adolescents.

José Nuñez had to handle all of this while learning English, just after moving from Santa Cruz, Bolivia, with his family. During middle school, students did not necessarily pick on him, but what one group of his “friends” did may have been worse than name-calling or outright bullying.

The cool thing to do after early dismissal was to go out to eat with all your friends. One day, Nuñez and his friends planned to go out, but then they cancelled last minute — they went without him.

“Even to this day, I still have nightmares about it,” Nuñez said. He had followed his friends after school, pretending to be James Bond, when he realized where they were going.

“I’m thinking to myself, ‘Why? Why did they not want me there?’” Nuñez said. At the time, he worried that it was because he was from another country and did not speak English well.

Although Nuñez’s mother is from the Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania, she never felt the need to teach her three sons English while they were living in Bolivia.

“It was very difficult. It was a lot of tears,” Nuñez said of his experience learning English.

The Nuñez family left Bolivia to escape the turbulent political atmosphere, which was starting to fall under the power of Evo Morales, who is still president today.

Years later, Nuñez is living in ­­Carlisle with his fiancée, Andrea DeAntonio, and is a graduate of Shippensburg University (SU). Although he has a degree in secondary education, Nuñez currently works at the SU Foundation. In the future, he hopes to continue work with non-profit organizations.

As Nuñez described his native country, Spanish words skipped across his tongue with ease, his accent rising with each foreign sound. Just as easily, he transitioned back to his second language, hardly giving a hint of a Bolivian accent.

His dark brown mop of curls and tan, olive skin are evidence of his Hispanic heritage, but when speaking with him, one would never know that his first language is not English.

In his line of work, Nuñez needs to be a master of the English language, because his job hinges on his communication skills. As the assistant phonathon coordinator at the SU Foundation, Nuñez has to manage dozens of college students who work to get donations for the university’s annual fund.

When Nuñez was a student at SU, he worked three jobs to put himself through school, and one of them was working for the phonathon, soliciting donations from alumni, parents and the like.

“There’s no better feeling than helping someone you don’t know,” Nuñez said.

Nuñez originally aspired to become a history teacher, seeing the profession as a challenge he could tackle. During his student teaching experience at Carlisle Area School District, Nuñez had mixed feelings about the teachers he was assigned to work with. He began to question whether education was the right career path for him.

“There were some nights where I did not want to wake up the next morning because I did not want to go again,” Nuñez said of his first co-op experience.

“I remember crying myself to bed. I remember placing the phone call to my adviser,” Nuñez said.

Nine weeks before the end of his senior year, Nuñez decided to follow through with the completion of his education degree.

“At the point where they throw student teachers into the mix to actually do the teaching, it seems like it’s way too late,” Nuñez said of the SU education program.

However, Nuñez’s student teaching experience improved greatly when he went to work with Walter Bond’s eighth-grade class.

“Within the first two weeks, he let me take over and as soon as I started taking over, he just sat outside. He said, ‘Hey if you need anything, knock on the window, I can come and help you,’” Nuñez said. “And I loved that.”

Although Nuñez is not sure if he will go back to teaching, he takes the lessons he learned from the experience and uses them in his daily work with phonathon.

“I think he’s the perfect amount of positivity everyone at the phonathon needs in order to stay on task,” said Ana Guenther, a third-year phonathon caller.

“He’s a boss when he needs to be, but he’s a friend who appreciates all of us a majority of the time,” Guenther said.

At work, Nuñez often talks about the love of his life, Andrea DeAntonio. She is literally the love of his life, because the couple has been dating for almost nine years.

As Nuñez started to talk about his fiancée, his eyes looked off into the distance and a goofy grin spread across his face, showing off the white teeth that contrast his tan skin so strongly.

His love for DeAntonio is evident in every word he utters.

The nine years did not pass without struggles and fights, but now the couple is set to wed in the fall.

“I didn’t realize what was in front of me,” Nuñez said of DeAntonio.

“It sounds cliché,” said Chris DeAntonio, Andrea’s brother. “They’re pretty much opposites and it works, because they balance each other out.”

Nuñez’s office is decorated with little reminders of his fiancée. A candid picture of the couple dancing sits between two chairs in his office. On the computer, a black and white photo is plastered across the background, capturing a moment when Nuñez is staring lovingly at his wife-to-be.

There is even a coloring book picture of Jasmine and Aladdin from the Disney movie, labeled, “José and Beyoncé.” At the phonathon, Nuñez jokingly refers to his fiancée as Beyoncé. His relationship with the phonathon callers has to remain professional, but he likes to joke around with the students. After all, Nuñez only graduated one year ago, but he is quickly rising in the ranks at work.

He goes above and beyond at the office, said Matt Cubbage, a co-worker of Nuñez. Nuñez has a happy-go-lucky attitude about him, which Guenther also calls contagious.

Nuñez often stays late to make sure everything is running smoothly at the SU Foundation.

“Yes, success is a reality, but its effects are only temporary,” Nuñez said.

Forever humble, Nuñez always seems to question when he is recognized for his hard work. When he received grants or awards in college, Nuñez would wonder if he really put in enough effort to deserve the honor. DeAntonio usually brings Nuñez back to earth, reminding him of his accomplishments.

The couple has been busy planning their wedding, setting goals to accomplish each month. The bulk of Nuñez’s guests will consist of his friends from college, since it is hard for his family from Bolivia to travel all the way to the United States for one day. As Nuñez talked about his friends coming together for the big day, his big smile appeared again.

Come fall, the little boy in middle school who was once left out will be the man of the hour as he walks down the aisle to wed his future wife.

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