Fourteen Oak Harbor High School students were honored recently by the Career and Technical Education program.
Every semester, each CTE class picks a student to be the Student of the Semester. At the end of the school year, the entire department picks two to recognize as Students of the Year.
Jasmyn Maier and Gabe Groenig, both seniors at the high school, were named the Students of the Year.
Maier, who was also named Student of the Semester for her yearbook class, was named student of the year for her involvement in yearbook and Naval Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps.
“It’s really unexpected,” Maier said. “More so because I didn’t know people noticed. It’s an honor.”
Maier said that qualities of a Student of the Year should be integrity and a good work ethic.
Groenig said leadership and dedication are also important.
“It’s really all about how dedicated you are to your department, to your school,” he said.
Groenig was named student of the year for his involvement with DECA. He’s been involved in other CTE programs, including photography, video production and with a program used in the architectural and engineering departments, but his main department is DECA, which he says takes up most of his time.
“I go out to Seattle like, two times a month at least, just for DECA things,” he said. “I’ve done stuff in Oak Harbor trying to help next year … and also helping and trying to make us sufficient so we’re not trying to ask for funds from CTE or from the school district or the community.”
Being named CTE Student of the Year is an honor given in recognition for all the hard work he’s been doing, said Groenig.
“I was very elated,” he said. “It’s really nice to have a bit of recognition from the school.”
Each department recognizes a student of the month, and chooses a student of the semester from those who have earned that title.
Groenig said that in DECA, it usually honored students who stood out in that particular month, and because he’s “always been so involved in DECA that it was never like, one month that I stood out, so I never got student of the month.”
Sandee Oehring, the CTE director, said that Maier and Groenig were easy choices for student of the year.
“Both of them exemplify what we’d want our community or a university to think back and go ‘Wow, this kid went to Oak Habor High School,’” said Oehring. “They are excellent representatives of our school … they’re able to take a hold of something and set a really good example for other students, and that’s what we’re looking for.”
Oehring said that the qualities the departments look for in the Students of the Year and Students of the Semester are “leadership, employability skills, workmanship, punctuality, work habit skills, that sort of thing that would represent our department really well.”
The students of the semester are listed below.
Jackson Wezeman for Robotics and Automation, Kai Ahner for Metal Fabrication, Robert Thomas for Culinary Arts, Race Finnegan for Business Education, Christian Rowe for Contruction/Woods, Linsey Beumer for Human Body & Internship, Zach Johnson for NJROTC, Kali Linson for Retail Management, Patrick Anderson for Advanced Automotive, Claire Hovde for Engineering, Ryan Hughes for Sports Medicine & Internship, Taylor White for Video/Broadcast Communication and Jasmyn Maier for Yearbook.
