Wahluke seniors rack up over a million dollars for college

MATTAWA - Little old Wahluke High School scored big - real big - in scholarships for graduating seniors, it was announced last week by counselor Jan Phillips.

The class totaled $860,000 in the awards that were counted. There was even more in Washington College Bound Scholarships that were not included in the count.

The value of the College Bound would add literally hundreds of thousands of dollars if each one represents four years of tuition, fees and books for each student, Principal Jeff Pietla said.

"Isn't that crazy?" Phillips said. "It's an all-time record for us."

Wahluke's seniors totaled $170,000 last year. The big difference was big scholarships. Wahluke had two Gates Scholars, 4 College Success Foundation Leadership 1000 Scholars, a WSU First Scholar Award, 2 Costco Diversity Awards and a Washington Opportunity Scholarship.

"Bill's covering my Bills," valedictorian Gabino Abarca said with a grin in his address to his classmates.

The Gates Awards will pay all expenses all four years at any university. That places their value at more than 100,000 each. All of these others are worth at least $20,000 or more, and then there was a myriad of other awards, large and small.

"I am just so impressed by the accomplishments of all of these students," Phillips said. "They worked hard throughout high school and, as you can see from the total, their hard work paid off in some very big ways this year."