Being a member of the Top 10 is a prestigious award. Many students battle for these rankings over the course of their four years in high school. Achieving this goal is no easy task however. It requires intense work ethic and drive as well as taking specific classes and excelling in these classes.

This year's Top 10 starts with a four way tie for valedictorian. This tie is between Kaiden Thomas, Leo Hoppa, Brandon Burke, and Ryan Joesting. These four ended the year with perfect 4.0 GPAs and an insane amount of class credits. Due to the four way tie, the next ranking is fifth. Fifth place belongs to Molly Anthony and Ellie Black in a two way tie. Next is Ashley Waggoner in seventh place followed by Katie Hiernaux in eighth. In Ninth is Kylie Spade and in tenth Case Trokhan.

Making it into the Top 10 has a lot of requirements. Senior Kaiden Thomas, one of the Valedictorians provides a detailed summary of some of the requirements.

“ 23 of the classes one takes at Badin are accounted for when calculating the top 10. These 23 classes are split up by subject so you must be an all-around honors student to end up at the top. Your GPA from just these 23 classes is then calculated and that is essentially your score” Thomas said.

The Top 10 are featured in many of Badin’s school material as major academic successes as well as attend a luncheon at the end of the year. This year the Top 10 luncheon is on Wednesday at the Marriott in Hamilton. Many of the members of Top 10 are very proud of their accomplishment. Leo Hoppa is one of those members.

“I am very proud of myself and my fellow classmates. It has been a difficult past four years, especially with Covid and we all worked very hard to persevere. We all deserve a pat on the back” Hoppa said.