Campus Events // Open House and Golf Tournament

On June 1, Woodward Academy hosted it’s annual Open House celebration that is hands down the most colorful event of the year. The day kicks off with an epic 5K run that asks participants to navigate a wooded trail with fallen trees, wade through a waist deep crick, and climb the “Iron Man,” a steep, muddy incline that can only be accomplished with the use of a rope. As a dorm, students and staff theme their outfits. This year, Navigator Hall came through with one of the most inventive in recent memory, with their runners dressing as Pac-Man characters. The winner of the race was staff member Josh Pauley from the dorm Delta Company.
   
Each event throughout the day is a part of a larger competition with students on each dorm strategically participating in events. After the race, a 3 on 3 basketball tournament occured next to a muddy tug of war contest, at the same time as students participated in a bag toss competition. Each awarded points to the dorms, with this year’s overall winner being Navigator Hall.
   
Beyond the student events, guests of the Open House can get tours of the campus, and can meet with their students. The weather was beautiful and the day went off flawlessly. Special thanks to teacher Justin Schmauss and Educational Liaison Aric Rush for organizing the day. You can see images from the day on your Knight Pics website.

The 8th annual Knight’s Scholarhip Golf Outing was held for the first time at the Honey Creek Golf Course in Boone, Iowa. This year, 71 golfers participated in the event that helped raise money for the Lifetime Commitment Fund that annually helps Woodward Academy alumni as they move into the next stage of their life. Over the past 7 years, this fund has paid for college tuition, apartment furnishings, and even travel expenses for one alum who participated in the USA Track & Field Indoor
National Championships.
   
This year, over $5,800 was raised for the fund with an additional $1,000 being donated by Aureon,
a local technology company that offers customizable technology, HR, and contact center solutions. To date, this annual tournament has raised $45,800, all of which has gone toward helping students achieve their post-Woodward Academy goals. 

Fishing Club

Many of the great Woodward Academy activities originated from the passion of a particular staff member. The historic powerlifting program began as a weight lifting club, and the well-dressed drumline was started in a general music class. One of the next great things to happen at Woodward Academy could be the Fishing Club.
   
Woodward Academy is surrounded by rural land, including some small creeks. Luke Corrick, a Group Leader on campus, started taking some of his primary students fishing to help generate a relationship with them, spend time outdoors, and to teach them about a passion of his that he was first exposed to as a youth. He decided to take this casual weekend activity with students on his dorm, and open it up to more students in the form of the Fishing Club.
   
As the Club got underway, he started having aspiration of doing with the program. In February, he started emailing different tournament organizations all over Iowa. His first response was from Steve Miller from Oxbow Bandits Bass Club in Sioux City, Iowa, who said that he’s love to have some guys come and compete in their youth tournament they hold at Blue Lake every year.
   
On June 3rd, the Woodward Academy team caught 9 total fish on that day, with two of them at the legal length of 15 inches. For their first tournament, they finished 5th out of 10 total high school teams and represented the Academy well. Corrick hopes to get the team in one more tournament this summer and already has ideas on how to expand the Fishing Club for next year.

Neiko Morris Scholarship

On May 17, two Woodward Academy graduating students received the Neiko Morris Scholarship in remembrance of the former student leader on campus. Neiko was the perfect student for Woodward Academy: he was an excellent student, involved himself in student government, being an Executive Knight on his dorm, and participated in several athletic teams including the 2015 state basketball team.
   
Months later, he left us all with more questions than answers and gave us all a stark reminder the difficulties that many teens face. The statistics point to the fact that we are living in an epidemic:

• Children aged 10 to 14, death by suicide is now more common than death from traffic accidents.
• In 2014, suicide rates were higher than homicide rates for males and females of all age groups.
• While suicide was the 10th leading cause of death among the U.S. population in 2014, it was the second leading cause of death among youth ages 15 to 24.
   
Earlier this year, Neiko’s parents reached out to Woodward Academy and offered the generous gift of a financial scholarship to a pair of high school graduates who plan to attend college. Moved by their sentiment, the Management Team at Woodward Academy decided to match that gift for those students to help pay for tuition, books, or other things they may need.
   
The questions of “why” these things happen will never go away and we all now have to live with the looming feeling that we could have done more with our time with him. These feelings are no more powerful than with his parents. His time at Woodward Academy mattered and his parents saw that in him. He was laid to rest in his Knights jacket, a sentiment that he is forever a Knight. We report a lot of student opportunities and success, and as a school we are very proud of those things. But Neiko proves to us that there is more work that can be done and we will continue to do that work.
   
This scholarship is a way to honor him and make a difference in another Knight’s life. The two recipients of the scholarship were Ammari Johnson, a standout WA athlete who plans on attending Iowa Central Community College, and Destry Johnson, who anticipates attending college in his home area of the Pacific Northwest.

The Class of 2017 // Video

On May 17, the graduating Class of 2017 was honored with a commencement ceremony in the WA gymnasium. During the 2016-2017 academic school year, 51 students either received their high school diploma or Hi-SET equivalent, which is the largest graduating class in school history. The event was the culmination of a life-changing path that the students decided to take while at Woodward Academy. Many would admit that graduating was an unattainable dream and something that was not meant for them. But now that dream is complete where no one can take it from them.

Many parents and family members were able to attend the ceremony and the gymnasium was loud. When handing out diplomas, Lead Teacher William Terry noted how it is often protocol to hold applause until the end, but said "At Woodward Academy, we don't do it that way." As he read off the list of graduates, the student section exploded as they cheered for their dorm mates, and there was more than a couple tears of joy shed from the audience.

Principal Cory Wenthe began the ceremony with an introduction, and Group Living Director, Trent Fleshner, announced that seniors Ammari Johnson and Destry Johnson were recipients of the Neiko Morris Scholarship, a generous gift from the parents of a student alum. Senior speakers included Darnell Green, who talked about when he first started contemplating his future was mid-sprint at a track meet last year, as well as seniors Casey Bynum and Destry Johnson. Keynote speaker, Mark Wills, had a great uplifting speech where he challenged students to be their best and reminded them that this day was not the last time they will graduate from something, and that committing themselves and graduating from anything is a good day.