In less than a month, there will be 20 Wellsville-Middletown High School students who will be receiving their diplomas and getting ready for the real world.

On April 15, the high school held a Decision Day event at its library to help the students celebrate their future plans after high school. A total of 17 students were honored with their parents at the 90-minute event.

A breakfast was served before the students made announcements of their college plans. Then, students got to choose whether they want a gift card or grab money out of the cash cube.

The students who attended were Kylie Allison, Logan Davis, Rachel Davis, Abbie Freie, Brandon Graves, Jeffrey Honerkamp, Helanea McKenzie, Gavyn Moritz, Sam Page, Jonathan Pike, Mia Romecka, Lorelei Smith, Brooke Stroup, Gage Tipp, Isaac Todd, Austin Travis and Riley Walker.

“It was pretty nice,” Smith said. “The food was good. I liked the cash box thing.”

Out of the students in attendance, 11 of them got money from the cash box, which had $400. Honerkamp finished with the most money with $67.

Nine students plan to attend college after graduating from high school. They are Stroup (Maryville University), McKenzie (Evangel University), Allison and Freie (Hannibal-LaGrange University), Davis (Moberly Area Community College), Smith (Westminster College), Tipp (State Technical College) and Romecka (overseas).

Romecka is a foreign-exchange student from Poland. She will attend college in either London or Paris after high school graduation. She played for the girls basketball team this winter.

Smith, who played softball and was a member of the school’s choir, plans to get a Bachelor’s degree in nursing at Westminster’s Goldfarb School of Nursing.

McKenzie plans to major in elementary education at Evangel, which is located in Springfield. She played basketball at W-M for four years and is currently the school’s Student Council president.
Stroup, who was a cheerleader for the Tigers all four years, plans to major in music therapy at Maryville.

Both Freie and Allison will major in nursing at Hannibal-LaGrange. They are members of the W-M FFA chapter.

Todd and Moritz will attend Iron Eagle Welding School, located in Stockton. Todd currently plays baseball and competes in track. Moritz is the vice-president of the W-M FFA chapter.

Davis, Travis and Page plan to work for Operating Engineers Local 513 in the future. Davis will be working for Sellenriek Construction full-time after he graduates from high school before heading to Local 513.

Graves and Honerkamp will be working at Porta-King and COOP in New Florence, respectively, after graduating from high school.

Pike, who was an all-district Scholar Bowl performer in his junior year, plans to take a gap year before heading to St. Charles Community College for culinary arts.

He said he enjoyed being a part of the first-ever W-M Decision Day breakfast.

“It’s a really cool thing,” Pike said. “There’s always a first time for everything. Being one of the first people to be able to do that is awesome.”

The W-M graduation is scheduled for 7 p.m. on May 15. A senior scholarship and awards ceremony will be held the day before.