Upper Columbia Student Never Misses A Class

Graduate of Note

Class of ‘99 Special graduation edition

Rex Wren never missed a day of class. He was never even late.

The senior at Upper Columbia Academy in Spangle expects to graduate on Sunday with a perfect attendance record intact.

“I don’t really think it’s a big deal,” he said. “It’s just showing up for class every day.”

As an incentive, the academy offers a $100 cash award for each year of perfect attendance. Wren has cashed in three times already and expects to make it four in a row.

But he is a young man with much more going on than a perfect record for just showing up.

“I’ll tell you, he’s a boy on the run,” said his mother, Jackie Wren, a teacher at the boarding school, where the family lives.

He plays first trumpet in the concert band. He’s a member of the school’s Brass Choir and Trumpet Sextet. He plays on the varsity softball team.

The academy gymnastics team travels throughout the region, putting on exhibitions, and Wren performs a juggling act as part of the show.

His routine includes knives, rubber chickens and fire balls.

Wren has lived on the Seventh-day Adventist academy grounds since he was 1 year old.

As part of his schooling, he worked several hours a week in the academy’s computer lab. His interest in computers and business may lead him to his future career.

Wren said he plans to enroll at Northwest Arkansas Community College next year and eventually attend Union College in Nebraska or Southern Adventist University in Tennessee to finish his four-year degree in business or computer science.

Wren, his mother and grandmother, Merna Lange, are all planning to move this summer to Arkansas, where they will join other family members.

Wren said his perfect attendance mark may be the first time someone has done it for four straight years at the academy.

He said that even when he didn’t feel well, he went to class, like last week, when he was suffering from congestion in his lungs.

With graduation just a few days away, Wren is becoming wistful about the end of his high school career.

“I wish I could do it all over again, but life moves on,” he said.