The Recorder on June 05, 2025
Hannah Meyerhoeffer is salutatorian for the Class of 2025 and John Wagner is valedictorian. (Recorder photo by Tammy Minnigh)
MONTEREY — This year’s valedictorian and salutatorian at Highland High School have been part of the class since kindergarten. Even in the smallest public school system in the state, that kind of longevity is not the majority experience.
Out of 15 graduating students, just four have been in the same class since kindergarten, including valedictorian John Wagner and salutatorian Hannah Meyerhoeffer.
Wagner actually started in preschool, and still remembers former preschool teacher Cappie Hull as his all-time favorite teacher for her sweetness and educational impact.
“She really gave you the basics I feel like other teachers wouldn’t give you,” Wagner said, something he credits with giving him the strong start he needed.
Graduating with a 4.25 grade point average, he built on that solid foundation to finish strong.
Meyerhoeffer finishes close behind with a 4.20 GPA. Her favorite Highland teacher is Michael Warf, who teaches middle school math and high school science classes.
“I can’t say I particularly enjoyed the math in middle school, but the physics and chemistry was incredible,” she said. “He teaches like no other science or math teacher I ever had.”
She credits Warf’s hands-on teaching methods for keeping attention and reinforcing concepts. “He teaches to your learning style, so everybody excels,” she said. “The learning was just so easy with him. He made you want to learn more than the actual subject content.”
Wagner and Meyerhoeffer are headed to universities to pursue long-term dreams.
Wagner plans to attend the University of Virginia to study human biology as a pre-med student.
“I want to go into a technician position,” he said, focusing on MRI, CAT scans, or X-ray technology. “I’ve always wanted to go into the medical field.”
He explained, “My mom played a big role because she was in the hospital a lot while I was growing up and I saw people helping her. I was motivated by that.” He noted U.Va. is one of the best medical schools in the country, but the personal connection is also important. “That’s where my mom was and I visited there a lot as a child,” he said. “It feels right.”
Meyerhoeffer is headed to Averett University in Danville.
“I’m going to major in equine studies with a minor in business management,” she said. “My dream is to own and operate my own stables eventually. I want to teach horsemanship.”
Meyerhoeffer has been riding for about six years and works at Sunny Stables in Monterey. “I’ve just fallen in love with the horses and the people and my passion has really grown from that,” she said.
She will take her horse, Raven, with her but won’t ride her in school competitions as the school provides horses. “They’ve given me the opportunity to ride for their collegiate team,” she said.
She said Averett has a small size similar to Highland, and classes in her major will have an average size of just five students.
“I’m staying with the same size, just with a bigger atmosphere,” Meyerhoeffer said.
She and Wagner recalled some of the positive aspects of attending such a small high school.
“It’s been great,” Wagner said. “The relationships you form here I feel are more than you get at any other school.”
The small size also means more opportunities for sports, while the long-term relationships formed from lower grades also improve scores.
“Our sports teams this past year have excelled,” Wagner said, with some doing better than teams have for more than two decades. “We’ve been playing together all our lives and I think that gives you a chemistry you can’t beat,” he said.
He said a lot of his baseball team members have played together since the age of seven, on Little League and recreation league teams. “We know each other’s strengths. We know each other’s weaknesses. We balance each other out,” Wagner said.
Some of Meyerhoeffer’s favorite memories are the leadership opportunities she has had through the National Honor Society and the Student Council Association.
“I’ve been re-elected as class president since eighth grade,” she said.
Recently, her leadership efforts have been focused on planning graduation and senior class trips.
“We decided to do two-day trips,” she said, noting that planning a weeklong trip faced difficulties with approval and logistics.
The class went to Washington, D.C., for the day, touring museums and monuments with plenty of spending money. The second day trip will be to Kings Dominion with upgraded tickets for unlimited food. “It will be a great trip,” Meyerhoeffer predicted.
Highland High’s small size also means students face some challenges, particularly in classes offered.
“We’re at quite a deficit right now,” Meyerhoeffer said. “There’s not a specific want or need for advanced classes except for a select few students.”
That means a lot of advanced classwork is through online classes, when available.
“I feel like there are some classes I might have taken earlier” in a larger school system, Wagner said.
The online classes mean they didn’t get what each cited as the main benefit of small class sizes common at Highland — more time with teachers who get to know their students.
“You don’t get a personal connection to teachers online,” Meyerhoeffer said.
She and Wagner each took eight advanced placement and dual enrollment classes, which can earn college credits in high school. “You have to work a lot harder because you are teaching yourself,” she said.
But she still sees the bright side to that challenge. “Since I’ve taken so many dual enrollment classes, I’m going to have an advantage over students who had in-person (instruction),” Meyerhoeffer said. “It will all flow better to collegiate learning.”
The online classes give greater opportunities, Wagner said, citing his virtual anatomy class as his all-time favorite. “It’s what I want to do later in life,” he said.
Meyerhoeffer also really enjoyed her online Governor’s School English classes and the teacher.
“She assigned a lot of difficult material that really makes you think,” she said.
To supplement the limited local offerings, Highland High School participates in regional opportunities. Wagner and Meyerhoeffer both attended the Hugh O’Brian Leadership Conference over the summer before their junior year.
“I thought that was great,” Wagner said. “It gave you a feel of what it might be like in college.”
“I think it gave us a big open-eye picture on what college would be like for us and how to do it well,” Meyerhoeffer agreed.
Highland High School will hold its graduation ceremony at 10 a.m., Saturday, June 14, in the high school gym.