By Courtney Rabideau (Contact / Staff Bio)
August 9, 2008 - 12:00 a.m. EST

CARO ‹ At the age of 14, Steve J. Kosteck, Jr. averaged 99 percent on an academic examination, placing him first in his class of 282 pupils at the Frankfort School, a rural one-room school in Tuscola County. The honor earned him a spot in the Advertiser in 1944.

This wouldn’t be the only time he’d be featured in the pages, though.

Kosteck, a Caro native, has long since left behind his time in the area, now residing with his family in Tucson, AZ. He has fond memories of the Thumb, though, ones he wants to share with all its local residents.

Kosteck credits his teacher from Frankfort School, Miss Marjorie McIntyre, as being responsible for the success he achieved early on. He vividly remembers the time spent in her classroom.

“Every Christmas we’d have a party. In the weeks following Thanksgiving, we’d be busy memorizing parts for the Christmas play and making sure everything was in order. Then, a few days before Christmas, our parents would arrive at school and we’d sing and perform for them,” Kosteck recalled.

In his early years, Kosteck worked alongside four brothers and a sister for his father on the family’s 90-acre farm located four miles east of town on Frankfort Road. He even worked for the Advertiser as a teen, proudly boasting his $0.40 an hour earnings doing various maintenance work and making sure a cart holding the newly-printed papers was pushed to the post office on time.

As for his time in high school, Kosteck commented, “I was very pleased to go to high school because there were so many in my eighth grade class who didn’t have that opportunity to go on. I was fortunate.”

Kosteck played defensive tackle and guard on the football team, and was named the honorary captain in 1947.

“Back then, the boys from Vassar were the ones to watch out for. There was a factory in their town and it seemed like they were always so much stronger than us,” he quipped.

Following graduation, he traveled to East Lansing’s Michigan State College and earned a B.A. degree in 1952.

His college roommate, Robert Geid, whose father owned the JC Penney store in Caro, shared lavish stories of lawyers and attorneys with Kosteck. That was all he needed to push him in the direction of law.

“I’d taken a lot of accounting classes at school, and was planning on getting a job in the accounting department at a corporation. Robert’s stories sounded like something I’d be interested in, so that’s what I set my mind to do,” said Kosteck.

The same year he graduated from college, he married his wife, Joan Lorretta Youngblood. They recently celebrated their 56th wedding anniversary.

From 1952-1956, he attended the Detroit College of Law and graduated with a LL.B. degree. In 1968 he was awarded a Juris Doctor degree.

In 1956, Kosteck, his wife and their three children headed to Arizona. After stints with State Farm and All-state, he opened a private practice. In that time, he also became a member of the State Bar of Arizona.

On June 20 of this year, Kosteck was presented by the Board of Governors of the State Bar of Arizona with a Special Award of Honor for 50 years of service in the legal profession.

Kosteck earnestly gives his wife, parents, siblings and school teachers the praise for his achievements.

To summarize, Kosteck said, “I have certainly been blessed.”