Big Walnut’s Wenger driven to succeed

Big Walnut’s Jessie Wenger

Story and photo by

BRECK J. HAPNER

A famous lit­er­ary adage states “Let me not to the mar­riage of true minds admit imped­i­ments.” Big Wal­nut High School senior Jes­sica “Jessie” Wenger has rewrit­ten this to declare “Let me not to the mar­riage of true dis­ci­plines admit impediments.”

Using insight, expe­ri­ence, dili­gence and ded­i­ca­tion, Jessie has striven to com­bine her love for high school and com­mu­nity activ­i­ties, sports and busi­ness into a col­lege path­way lead­ing to a future career.

Dur­ing her junior year, Jessie vis­ited Bald­win Wal­lace Uni­ver­sity where she learned about a sports man­age­ment pro­gram bind­ing together every­thing she had been work­ing on over the past four years. At that moment, Jessie said, she knew what she wanted to do. The fusion of dis­ci­plines was per­fect, she said.

Although the path­way was ardu­ous at times, Jessie kept her goal in sight, build­ing school and com­mu­nity lead­er­ship and ser­vice skills.

“I try to live up to the Big Wal­nut rep­u­ta­tion,” Jessie said, “where we take care of our oblig­a­tions and respon­si­bil­i­ties to every­thing and every­one. We are all very con­nected here.”

A good exam­ple of this phi­los­o­phy is Jessie’s involve­ment in the Big Broth­ers, Big Sis­ters pro­gram. She men­tors and cre­ates ther­a­peu­tic activ­i­ties for those who pos­sess a social dis­abil­ity, may not have a good home life, or just need assis­tance in some other area, such as with home­work. Every Mon­day, Jessie works with a stu­dent from Big Wal­nut Mid­dle School.

“I am a “Big” for a girl who is great,” Jessie said. “She is very ener­getic but has trou­ble mak­ing friends and get­ting her stud­ies com­pleted. I am the per­son she turns to and I try to always be there for her.”

Jessie takes her ser­vice to oth­ers seri­ously. Always a team player, she has been able to ben­e­fit oth­ers while sym­bi­ot­i­cally strength­en­ing her­self. With the Eagles First Flight club, Jessie teaches incom­ing fresh­men about the demands and expec­ta­tions of high school, also pro­vid­ing advice and home­work assis­tance. In Mu Alpha Delta, the math­e­mat­ics honor soci­ety, Jessie tutors stu­dents in one of her future col­lege specialties.

“I have always been good at math,” Jessie said, “and I enjoy help­ing oth­ers. I have been tutor­ing many sopho­mores who must take the Ohio Grad­u­a­tion Test.”

Math­e­mat­ics instruc­tor Kather­ine Daw­son said Jessie has been doing well in AP Cal­cu­lus and is an asset to the class because she is will­ing and able to ask clar­i­fy­ing ques­tions, which in turn helps other students.

“Although she is involved with many dif­fer­ent things, noth­ing suf­fers,” Daw­son said. “When Jes­sica com­mits to some­thing, she is reli­able and responsible.”

Elected senior class sec­re­tary by her peers, Jessie tries to lead, man­age and orga­nize by exam­ple. She is work­ing on the class gift to the school and grad­u­a­tion along with the National Honor Soci­ety, set­ting up the invi­ta­tions, speak­ers, caps and gowns.

“Because of my class posi­tion and col­lab­o­ra­tion, I also won the National Honor Soci­ety sec­re­tary appoint­ment a month ago,” Jessie said.

In keep­ing with the ten­ants of school spirit and sup­port, Jessie has par­tic­i­pated in the Big Wal­nut Jazz, March­ing and Pep Bands, play­ing trumpet.

“This year, the march­ing band went to States, per­form­ing at the Uni­ver­sity of Day­ton Arena,” Jessie said. “It was a great expe­ri­ence thanks to every­one par­tic­i­pat­ing and our direc­tor, Craig Porter.”

Clos­est to Jessie’s heart is var­sity soc­cer, which she has let­tered in all four years as a Golden Eagle in the defender and center/midfielder posi­tions. As senior year soc­cer cap­tain, Jessie cred­its her coach, Drew Pitzer and her team­mates with the revival of the squad.

“We went from only win­ning four games last year to a win­ning sea­son this year, mak­ing it to the sec­ond round of the tour­na­ment,” Jessie said. “We really took a team that was falling apart and made it a family.”

Ath­letic Direc­tor Steve Gle­senkamp said Jessie sets an indi­vid­ual stan­dard that all Big Wal­nut ath­letes should strive to achieve.

“Jessie is hard­work­ing, pas­sion­ate, coach­able and a leader in our pro­grams,” Gle­senkamp said. “When young ladies are look­ing for role mod­els, look no fur­ther than Jessie Wenger.”

Jessie has also spent the last 10 years play­ing the club soc­cer cir­cuit, trav­el­ing all over Ohio with coach Mar­ilee Old­field, an illu­mi­nat­ing teacher and major influ­ence for Jessie.

“Mar­ilee was the one who really started inspir­ing me to be a leader,” Jessie said. “She really pulled it out of me, caus­ing me not to look back. I now always feel like it’s my job to take on and try to fix things, to be a role model for my peers and the community.”

Plan­ning to attend Otter­bein Col­lege in the fall, Jessie wants to double-major in sports man­age­ment and account­ing while pur­su­ing a minor in busi­ness. Jessie explained that she wants to take advan­tage of her tal­ent at math in under­grad­u­ate school to secure future employ­ment, though she nurses big­ger ambitions.

“My big dream is work­ing for the NFL or Major League Soc­cer in the busi­ness finan­cial, orga­ni­za­tional and man­age­ment areas,” Jessie said, “and my real­is­tic dream is work­ing as an ath­letic direc­tor for a university.”

Jessie said she is excited about attend­ing col­lege and feels like it is time to move on. She admits she will miss her friends but is ready to make new acquaintances.

“I’m excited about focus­ing on col­lege soc­cer, classes, my career and my future,” Jessie said. “I’m ready.”

Posted by Breck Hapner on Feb 22 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.