As the 2025 school year comes to an end, Big Sky’s seniors are getting prepared to spread their wings and fly out of the Eagles’ nest.
There are many seniors leaving the state and some that are staying in town. Some still aren’t sure what they’re doing yet.
For example, Anaiya Tupeck is a Big Sky IB Diploma candidate committed to The University of Montana but is also waitlisted for Harvard. Anaiya will be starting college in the fall and plans to be part of the Davidson Honors College and the Global Leadership Initiative Program at UM if Harvard doesn’t get back to her. She should get her acceptance letter or rejection letter at least by the end of June, she said.
When asked about what she was most excited for, Tupeck explained that she looks forward to having a life outside of school because she had a lot to uphold like the “IB diploma, leadership roles at dance, and dance team. I didn’t want to mess up,” Tupeck said.
Another senior and IB Diploma candidate, Annabelle Henkins, also is waiting to hear back from colleges to determine where she will go and what she will do next. At this point, she is thinking she is most likely going to Grand Canyon University because she got a full-ride scholarship.
As a Big Sky student, Henkins has been a part of Health Occupation Students of America (HOSA), Speech & Debate, Health Science Academy (HSA) Ambassador, National Honor Society (NHS) , Distributive Education Clubs of America (DECA), the IB Diploma cohort, library Book Club, Model United Nations (MUN) , Science Olympiad, Musical Theater, Sky Blues, and Academic World Quest.
Henkins wants to pursue biochemistry or neuroscience, then she wants to try to “fast track” to a pre-med degree and get it done in two to three years. Then, Henkins would like to get into medical school and go through the U.S. Navy.
When asked what she would tell her freshman self, Henkins said, “Don’t procrastinate and build healthy habits, and don’t care about what people think.”
Just like Tupeck and Henkins, Garrett Cleveland is an IB candidate committed to Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts. Cleveland plans to major in biochemistry and biophysics.
Like most of these seniors, Cleveland said that senior year has been pretty busy and “it’s definitely the hardest, which I think is not what a lot of people say about their senior year.”
Cleveland talked about how he wants to be more social and meet new people in college. If Cleveland could say something to his freshman self, he would say, “get involved in stuff inside and outside of school freshman year.”
Another senior that is going out of state is Josie Rhodes, who is committed to the University of Oklahoma to pursue a degree in aviation. She says she always wanted to be a flight attendant, “then like sophomore year, I decided I could do better.” So, Rhodes wants to be a pilot when she graduates from college.
Josie says she is a pretty social person and so she thinks that she will be able to make more friends in Oklahoma, even though she is far away from close Missoula friends.
While most of these seniors are going straight into college, another senior, Ariauna Belarde, will be staying in Missoula and joining the workforce after graduation.
Belarde was one of Big Sky’s 2024-25 student body presidents, and is staying in Missoula to help out at her dad’s financial company. She will then take a Youth for Christ internship in Puerto Rico for eight weeks. Belarde says that she is most scared about “not having the structure of high school and the class schedules.”
While these are just a few voices from the Class of 2025, Leslie Guerreri, Class of 2025 counselor, says that this class has had lots of amazing athletes and many people that are getting scholarships to go do other things when they leave high school.
Guerreri will now be the counselor for the incoming freshmen next school year. One of Guerreri’s favorite memories of this senior class is the HSA Amazing Race, which is held at Big Sky annually for the HSA members to have fun. She said the seniors involved in the amazing race competition helped a lot with the organization and planning.
Overall, Guerreri is very proud of this class and that they “made it to the finish line.”
