Awards & Recognition

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Tyler Gehl

Geneseo MS

Principal: Mr. Nathan O'Dell

Participation in interscholastic activities has taught Tyler Gehl the importance of being on a team, determination, sportsmanship, and learning not only from winning, but from losing as well. These traits, along with exemplary academic performance, led to his selection as the Scholar Attitude Award winner for Board of Directors Division B.

Tyler participates in cross country, wrestling, track, band, Student Council, speech team, and Jazz Band while maintaining a 4.23 grade point average. He is most proud of his accomplishments in cross country, where he medaled at all meets except state and improved his time in the two-mile by 30 seconds. “The determination required by sports and school clubs have shown me to hold my chin up, pin my ears back, and push through whatever might be oppressing me,” Tyler says.

Learning from losing, especially by being courteous if you lose, is an important way to practice good sportsmanship, according to Tyler. “If you want to win a lot, you need to know how to lose,” he says. He notes that when students participate in an IESA activity, they are representing their town and their school as well as themselves. “I have seen it happen where a simple unsportsmanlike action decimates a school’s reputation in an instant,” he says. “When a student practices sportsmanship, people respect the student as a person as well as who they are representing.”

After high school, Tyler is challenging himself to pay for his college degree in aerospace engineering through scholarships and income he earns himself. “Aerospace engineers have so much potential to change the way humans go about everyday life,” he says. “The science behind flight is so amazing, but much of the finer details are still waiting to be discovered.”

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