Most wouldn’t guess Thomas Auten to be an inventor but someday he might be. His welding and creative skills led him to invent the “bumper-dumper,” which took him to State. The bumper-dumper is a combination of metal and a toilet seat welded together to fit on the hitch receiver of any vehicle that has one. Auten first took the metal and made a brace for the toilet seat and then found a way to add the toilet seat to the brace in order to make a “traveling bathroom.”

The bumper-dumper is just one of the many creative things Auten has come up with. He has also made a fire pit out of a drum, which involved cutting the drum in half and welding legs sideways onto the drum. Auten said he is proud of what he has made and will continue with this creative side.

Currently, Auten doesn’t have plans decided for after high school, but when he was younger he wanted to be a truck driver like his dad. Auten moved from Missouri to Atlantic as a junior and said moving was one of the biggest impacts on his life so far. His favorite place to vacation is “southern Missouri.”

Auten has one brother Aiden and one sister Sydney. Family is a big part of his life and they have had the biggest impact on his life. Auten spends his free time working at Fastenal and when he’s not working, he can be found “shooting guns on Saturdays with ‘da bois.’”