From high school to the military, that’s the path several Central Oregon students have chosen.
Monday Night Bend-La Pine Schools hosted its first ever joint military recognition event.
The ceremony was held at Mountain View High School and around 20 students were recognized.
“So, it’s a little bit of a transition and I hate to say I am nervous, but I am,” said army enlistee and Mountain View senior Cody Ford.
Ford has known he wanted to go into the military as long as he could remember.
Five generations of his family enlisted into the navy, but he wanted to go a different route and join the army.
“A lot of it at the time was job security, the army could get me a contract, the one that I wanted being a Black Hawk mechanic,” Ford said.
Ford hopes to work on those military helicopters before becoming a pilot.
Families, friends and classmates showed up to support seniors joining the armed forces.
“Seeing all my other classmates and people I know go up, it really just, really brightens up my day completely,” said ROTC Mountain View sophomore Riley Latta. “Ford has been a very big part of my life. Watching him go up is honestly the biggest part in why I came here.”
Even though the event was hosted by Bend-La Pine Schools, students from Redmond and Crook County High School were also celebrated at the event.
“It was one of our ways we can say, hey we see you, we appreciate you, we love your plan and we support you,” said Career Program Manager at Mountain View High School Jenn Williams.
Several speakers like superintendent Steven Cook and different military presenters acknowledged students joining the airforce, army, marines, naval academy and the navy.
Brother and Sister Aiden and Kysten Kenline leave for the Military Entrance Processing Station or MEPS Wednesday
“My friends who have already gone off and did it, didn’t get anything like this, so I think it is a really cool thing to do,” said Navy enlistee from La Pine High School Aiden Kenline.
They are both enlisting in the navy.
Aiden hopes to become an air crewman.
“You get to fly in a helicopter everyday,” said Aiden. “That sounds like a pretty good job, but also I like to be physical. I don’t like to just sit around and do a desk job or anything, so air crew seemed like a good way to go for me.”
Sister Kyrsten with her eyes set on becoming a hospital corpsman.
“It suits me,” Kyrsten said. “I want to be able to help people. It suits my personality and I feel like I will do a lot of good that way.”
