Nicholas Squyres is a self-described weirdo and performer who is known by most people around campus as Unicycle Guy.

Squyres, a 25-year-old senior music major with concentration in voice with a specialization in composition, is an eccentric man who is recognizable because of the blue and gold unicycle he rides around the campus.

“It was just a faster way to get around and because it’s not big like a bike you can just carry it in and don’t have to lock it up,” Squyres said. “Riding it around campus was kind just a natural thing because I wanted to ride more.”

Squyres started at Texas Wesleyan in 2011 after transferring from Tarrant County College.

Squyres said he learned to ride a unicycle around age 11 at a boat dock. However, at age 14 he stopped because he couldn’t afford a durable enough unicycle.  

“My voice teacher, Dr. Gordan Page from TCC, died so that’s how I got ahold of my friend Maddie Torres and she goes to drum circles,” Squyres said. “So I’m like, ‘This [experience] kind of makes me want to get back into unicycling’.”

Squyres said he bought his blue-and-gold unicycle after starting at Wesleyan because it’s the school’s colors.

While on his unicycle he can carry anything he normally can while walking and even eat, but drinking is more challenging.

“I can sing on the unicycle, I just can’t sit still and sing on the unicycle, so I can’t really perform,” Squyres said.

Squyres’ talents and interests go far beyond just unicycling.

He was on the Wesleyan dance team in 2012 and has been amateur wrestling through various agencies since last fall under the name Opera Man.

Lewis Wall, a Wesleyan alumnus who works at the Texas Wesleyan University Bookstore, remembers meeting Squyres as he walked into the bookstore in 2014 carrying his unicycle and that seemed odd.

“My honest impression was this guy has an individual character in a sense that’s unique because you don’t see anybody often doing that,” Wall said. “When I went to Texas State for a short time I don’t think I even saw anybody there riding a unicycle.”

Wall said he and Squyres have had conversations about the different kinds of food Squyres has eaten while unicycling.

“I remember that the hardest food to eat and carry while unicycling was a whole pizza,” Wall said.

Wall said he has had plenty of other conversations with Squyres because he has a lot of weird conversations with people.

“That is the one that sticks out to me the most though, because it was probably our most recent conversation,” Wall said.

McKenzie Brown, a senior Christian studies major and writing tutor at the Academic Success Center on campus, said she has tutored Squyres multiple times last summer.

“I saw him once before the tutoring sessions, it was the most recent ‘icepocalypse’ in the spring of 2015 and he came out and played in the snow in his boxers so that was a vivid memory.”

Brown said she and Squyres bonded over opera and that he is knowledgeable about how the voice works.

“I think he’s a creative thinker,” Brown said. “I think it’s very self-evident he’s a very creative person.”

Squyres describes himself as a “whimsically weird” performer.

“Work hard to live in the moment;” Squyres said “That’s a performer’s life.”

Squyres’ post-graduation plans include working toward his goal of being a professional performer and joining a band.

“As long as I’m performing, I’m happy,” Squyres said.