More than 99 percent of Iowa’s high school seniors that are distinguished through the Governor’s Scholar Program participate in school activities, and one of those clear examples comes from West Central Valley High School.

Stuart resident Kaila Findley was selected by her school as the highest academic achiever, and besides the time and effort she’s spent for that success, Findley has also been the West Central Valley FFA Chapter President, School Board Student Representative, served on the Student Council, and has been involved in other activities including drama and Family, Career and Community Leaders of America. While her senior year has included fond memories such as serving on the homecoming court, Findley shares how attending school online due to COVID-19 has been, “I’ve just missed seeing my friends every day at school and making memories since we’ll all be going to different colleges this fall and there was a lot of last things like my last FFA convention or FFA banquet things like that that we didn’t really have a chance to prepare for that we were going to miss all of those.”

As part of the Governor’s Scholar Program, Findley named agriculture instructor Molly Dolch as her most influential teacher. Findley will be attending the University of Iowa this fall to major in biology and pre-optometry with a minor in Spanish.