K-State’s Mueller doesn’t just embody character — the dude is one, too

MANHATTAN, Kan. — All great free spirits start somewhere, and Ryan Mueller’s tightrope walk between genius and madness starts in third grade. It starts with a giant sheet of white paper, a pile of utensils and one simple instruction from his teacher.”Be creative,” she says.He’s charged, along with the rest of the third graders, with making a hat to present to his mom for Mother’s Day, a token of his affection. The world is his canvas, the only limits being time, tools and his imagination.And once you let Ryan Mueller’s imagination out of the barn, captain, it’s gone. Like Secretariat.A short while later, Valerie Mueller gets a call. Ryan’s teacher.Oh, Lord.”I wanted to call you ahead of time and tell you about your hat,” the teacher says.How odd, Valerie thinks. Then comes the punch line:”It’s a toilet seat.”Chain. Hinges. Everything. You could even lift the lid, up and down, as it sat on top of your head. Cute.”I didn’t know whether to call you or Hallmark,” the teacher continues. “We’ve never had any of the kids make anything like that before.”One of a kind, our No. 44.”She just wanted me to make sure it would be OK, because the other… Read full this story

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