Thompson Valley’s Karina Ernst winner of Dick Connor A.C.E. Award

Karina Ernst, who turns 18 this week, is "wise beyond her 17-plus years," says Thompson Valley High track coach Matt Norton. Hyoung Chang, The Denver Post

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Karina Ernst, who turns 18 this week, is "wise beyond her 17-plus years," says Thompson Valley High track coach Matt Norton. Hyoung Chang, The Denver Post

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By Neil H. Devlin | ndevlin@denverpost.com | The Denver Post

UPDATED: May 1, 2016 at 6:35 AM MDT

LOVELAND — About six years ago, when Karina Ernst was in sixth grade, she was watching a movie on television. She had no idea that she was about to be asked a question that would forever change her.

Her father wanted to know how she would feel if he moved to a different house.

“I said, ‘Are you serious?’ I thought he was joking,” Ernst recalled.

Thus began an odyssey of hard lessons in maturity and real life that continue today and probably will never leave Ernst, a decorated student, distance runner and remarkably mature young woman who recently graduated from Thompson Valley High School.

Her father, Jonathan Ernst, succumbed to alcoholism in March 2011, his insides — primarily his liver — ravaged by abuse. But while The Denver Post’s 2012 Dick Connor A.C.E. Award winner won’t forget all of the trials, tribulations, heartache, fairy tales she was fed and emotions that stick to her, she refuses to focus on the negative.

“That wasn’t my dad. It was this monster,” said Ernst, who will turn 18 this week.

Losing innocence doesn’t come with guidelines or a time frame. She remembers thinking to herself, “What’s drunk? He had a drinking problem. I didn’t know what that meant, at least not the caliber of the situation,” Ernst said.

By the time her parents divorced within a year, her visits to see her father included catching on to the red face, shaking hands and vodka in morning orange juice. Eventually, she got further in tune with reports of finding empty liquor bottles, her father being away on business or fishing trips when he actually was in rehabilitation and visiting him in a hospital.

Only her inner strength brought on by necessity and a compassionate and loving performance under trying circumstances by her mother, Ingrid McMillan-Ernst, who helped care for her ex-husband until his death while balancing being a single parent of two young girls (Karina’s sister, Helena, will be an eighth-grader next school year), kept Karina standing.

She credits her mother, but no thanks is necessary.

“Maybe it made it easier when you take care of someone, you step up and be the tough guy,” said Ingrid, an architect who also experienced tough financial times after her husband’s death. “He needed help and we gave it to him. I didn’t want (their daughters) to go on feeling guilty. There was no abandonment. They knew he loved them dearly and we weren’t going to shun that.”

Still, Karina had every reason to break down and collapse, maybe even shut down. She didn’t. Not bad for someone who is 5-foot-4 and 102 pounds.

“She’s wise beyond her 17-plus years,” said Thompson Valley High cross country and track coach Matt Norton. “There’s definitely something about her.”

Teammate Hayley Berg, who will be a junior next school year, said Ernst “probably handled it in the most graceful way possible. She’s amazing. Honestly, I don’t know how she did it.”

Norton and Berg got a glimpse of Ernst perhaps at her most vulnerable — her father died two days before Karina’s junior track season.

“There was no doubt she was going to run,” Norton said.

It was already a key time for Ernst. She was coming off a knee injury. ACTs loomed. Homework was piling up. She was trying to prepare for college. It had already been years without living with her father, who had this disease she was still trying to figure out. He could drive, speak well and keep jobs while imbibing heavily, so how and why was this happening?

“(After his death) I was just so … I didn’t have time to dwell on it. I know that sounds bad, but I didn’t,” she said. “I didn’t want to use it for an excuse. … I didn’t want to look at it that way, didn’t want it to define me. I didn’t want to think about the bad things.”

So she trekked on, probably on fumes. Ernst was third in Class 4A cross country last fall — she finished sixth as a junior — in leading the Eagles to the team title. All told, she won 13 medals in track, including the 800 and 1,600 meters last month as well as captaining Thompson Valley to two relay crowns and the team championship. The prep All-American also placed fourth in the national outdoor meet in the mile.

Along with her 4.0 grade-point average and activity in various clubs and the school newspaper — she also sang the national anthem at various sporting events as well as at graduation — it was enough to land her a scholarship to Syracuse for cross country and track.

Those who know her aren’t surprised.

“With all of their imbalance, she seems pretty centered,” said Doug Halvorsen, who teaches chemistry at Thompson Valley. “Her mother kept up expectations. She didn’t want Karina’s grades to drop. She wanted her to do excellent.

“But Karina has that inner drive. Sure, it bothered her, but she had the fortitude to work through it, to perform at the level she did academically and athletically. She’s a neat kid, very fast-witted, very intelligent and easy to talk to.”

Talking is something Ingrid McMillan-Ernst does regularly with her daughters. She lost her mother to cancer when McMillan-Ernst was 18 and the feeling never really goes away.

“They’ve been trying to manage it around their daily activities and schedules, trying to cope,” McMillan-Ernst said. “I think the loss sets in when the shock is worn off. You’re caught unaware and it creeps in.

“(Karina) has a lot of pain that she hasn’t shared with people. I try to be very communicative with them; it’s important to talk. I don’t want to keep dragging them through it, bringing it up and bumming them out. I don’t want them to be in therapy when they’re 40.”

Of the lessons learned, Karina has two at the top of her list. One is to respect alcohol, but not be afraid of it. The other is how strong a mother can be and how it flows to others.

“Of course, we’re stronger,” she said. “I’m not big on mushy family tearfest. I hate reminiscing with them. I’m not big on big emotional scenes.

“But definitely through this whole thing, I see my mom differently. I just hope I’m a little bit as good as she is.”

Neil H. Devlin: 303-954-1714 or ndevlin@denverpost.com

An open letter from Karina Ernst

I am lucky, for I have a passion. A passion that I can fully submerse myself in, that allows me to escape briefly from the real world. When I run, I find clarity. When my father died, I was lost in how to handle it. I was worried that I wasn’t thinking or doing the right things — I was confused. Nothing can help me collect my thoughts and emotions like a good, hard run. It allows me to sort my feelings and organize my confusion. Sometimes, though, running workouts serve as distractions, allowing me to shut my mind off and focus on hitting my times. I think one of the reasons I excelled in running after my father’s death was the fact that I am so competitive and so hardheaded, I didn’t want to give in to the grief. I didn’t want to do what many expected me to do by bagging the season or taking time off. It was to the point where I was not going to let anything get in the way of me reaching my goals for that season, and I let my fresh emotions fuel me. I didn’t want my rivals to see me as weak, so instead of dwelling on the fact that my dad was gone, I ran in his name for most of the season. I enjoyed feeling the pain of a hard race, because it reminded me that I was alive and that I shouldn’t take my breath for granted.

Along with the literal running, I had my team to support me the entire way. In fact, throughout the entirety of my father’s illness and death, I had an incredible support system. This I am extremely fortunate for. I have received so much love from so many people, there is no way I could have gone through any of this without them — my teammates and my coach especially. I like to think that the members of the team have seen everyone at their worst, because there is no pain or exhaustion like the end of a cross country race. You really see each other at their rawest form. So when my father died, and this new side of me revealed itself to my teammates, it didn’t put them off. Rather, they welcomed it with open arms. I have never felt so loved than the week my father died, and I am truly thankful for everyone who reached out to me.

Throughout the entire situation, however, I had a rock. I had one person who kept me stable and always brought security to the situation: my mother. She saw the worst of it, and did so well protecting my sister and me from the scariest days of my father’s alcoholism. She truly is remarkable; anyone able to help someone they divorced through a sickness like this is truly admirable. When we would visit him in hospitals, all I had to do was look at my mother if I felt like I was going to lose it, and she’d be standing right there with us, with her business face on. I’d use her example to reassure my sister, and tried to be just as good a role model. She is the strongest woman I know. I aspire to be like her when I have children.

The last two things that kept me sane were humor and music. My sister and I are always reminded to find humor in any situation. In fact, making people laugh is one of my favorite things to do. While much of my humor revolving around my father was found in retrospect, it helped lighten the situation and made it much more bearable. A little laugh can go a long way, and by looking at a situation as humorous, rather than disturbing, I was able to help my family through many odd times. I share my love of music with my departed father, who was a musician himself and loved every kind, like I do. Music has never failed to calm me, perk me up or push me back onto my feet with new energy. Whether I am creating it myself or humming it in my head, there is no way I could have kept my level head without my tunes.

With all of these gifts I realize that I am extremely fortunate. I am able to look at my situation and find all the good. There are many out there who have it much worse than I do, and I am constantly reminding myself of this.

I’m not trying to feel better based on the suffering of other people, but it does bring perspective to me. I am a fortunate girl for all that I have.

Dick Connor A.C.E. Award

Former Denver Post sportswriter Dick Connor died in 1992 after an illustrious career. A longtime columnist, one of the few who hadn’t missed a Super Bowl, Connor took a personal interest in Colorado high school sports. Accordingly, The Denver Post offers the Dick Connor A.C.E. (Adversity Conquered through Excellence) Award, which is presented annually to a high school senior who has overcome a handicap, hardship or tragedy to excel in sports. The winner must have exhibited courage, resolve, leadership and citizenship. This year’s winner, Karina Ernst of Thompson Valley, is the 20th selectee and was honored Thursday at a lunch with Denver Post personnel, the Ernst family and Connor’s widow, Mary Kay Connor-Spieler. Ernst received a $2,000 scholarship from The Post and a copy of Connor’s book of columns.