Senior High

Exeter Inducts Four Into Academic Hall of Fame and 56 Into National Honor Society

members of exeter academic hall of fame 2022

The 2022 Academic Hall of Fame Inductees are: Mr. Kevin DeAcosta '84; Mr. Robert Jordan, Dr. Andrea Smith '97, and Mrs. Peggy Fleck.

The Exeter Township School District celebrated the achievements of students this past Saturday as 56 juniors and seniors were inducted into the Claude W. Dundore chapter of the National Honor Society and four notable alumni, educators or community members were inducted into the Exeter Alumni Association’s Academic Hall of Fame. Those inducted into the Academic Hall of Fame were Kevin DeAcosta ‘84, president and CEO of the Highlands of Wyomissing; Robert Jordan, retired Exeter Township Fire Chief; Dr. Andrea Smith ‘97, a maxillofacial prosthodontist; and Peggy Fleck, a retired school counselor. Inductees are chosen for their contributions to society and their impact and credit they've brought to the Exeter Township School District through their achievements, volunteerism and/or work. 

Mr. DeAcosta remarked during his speech that he was surprised to have been selected into the Academic Hall of Fame as he did not consider himself an exemplary student while at Exeter. In fact, he said, he read his first book in high school. “It wasn’t that I couldn’t read,” he said. “I couldn’t comprehend what I was reading. Said differently, I could recognize words but I didn’t understand their meaning… I was just instructed to go to the ‘special’ reading room. Think of the stigma associated with this,” he said to the hushed audience. Continuing, he recounted how an Exeter Reading Specialist, Mrs. Peggy Hart, patiently taught him how to comprehend the words he was reading, which, he said, changed the course of his life, allowing him to graduate cum laude from Alvernia University with a degree in accounting following his service in the Navy. Today, he serves as the Highlands of Wyomissing president and CEO and is a community leader and volunteer for many area non-profits. “I believe as I get older and think back, she will be the teacher that I think of the most because reading and communicating are so important in business, life and relationships.”

Mr. Jordan lived and raised his family in Exeter after he married, joining the Reiffton Fire Company in 1978, eventually becoming Chief of the company in 1996. In 2009, he became the first Fire Chief of the newly merged Exeter Township Fire Department when the Reiffton and Stonersville Fire Companies joined together. During his professional career, Mr. Jordan led numerous educational efforts of fire safety for students in Exeter schools. 

Dr. Smith is one of only 350 maxillofacial prosthodontists worldwide. She was valedictorian from both Penn State University’s Eberly College of Science and Columbia University’s College of Dental of Medicine. She completed her residency in advanced prosthodontics and her fellowship in maxillofacial prosthetics at UCLA. Upon her return to Pennsylvania, Dr. Smith became the first female clinical director of the Lancaster Cleft Palate Clinic until she joined Berks Prosthodontics.

Mrs. Fleck was selected as Pennsylvania’s Elementary School Counselor of the Year in 1991. At Exeter, she was responsible for introducing elementary developmental guidance programs to the district, where she also coached students and supported students outside of the classroom. 

The Academic Hall of Fame began in 2005 as a project of the Exeter Community Education Foundation and typically selects four to six inductees each year. This year's class brings the number of honorees to 74, who are presented with a plaque, as well as their names added to a display in the Senior High's main office.

During the second part of the ceremony, the current members of the National Honor Society presented and inducted 56 new members from the Class of 2023 and 2024 into its chapter through its candle-lighting ceremony that represents the Society's four pillars: character, leadership, scholarship and service. To be considered for membership, students must be sophomores or juniors with a weighted cumulative GPA of at least 92.000, involvement in at least one school activity or club and completion of at least five community service hours. This year’s inductees are:

  • Hayden Adams
  • Sofia Beggs
  • Miriam Bosler
  • Sydney Burke
  • Rebecca Cherry
  • Daisy Cortes
  • Chase Cupitt
  • Robert Dang
  • Owen Davis
  • Charlotte Dolena
  • Ashley Doll
  • Breckyn Donate
  • Matthew Dorn
  • Elizabeth Dougherty
  • Ashton Fasig
  • Macy Feathers
  • Faith Feldman
  • Noah Gates
  • Lukas Giering
  • Kyle Goodman
  • Landen Goughler
  • Alexis Grogesky
  • Grace Holleran
  • Selma Imkhaoun
  • Sophia Jones
  • Zachary Kauffman
  • Donghu Kim
  • Christina Kopecky
  • Hansika Kunduru
  • Ian Lubenow
  • Gavin Marr
  • Cassandra Miller
  • Logan Miller
  • Tanner Moore
  • Alex Nerney
  • Justin Nester
  • Jason Nester
  • Leahnessa Ortiz
  • Brody Oswald
  • Fallyne Oswalt
  • Anakin Reinbold
  • Charlotte Rismiller
  • Abigail Rothharpt
  • Jack Sahaida
  • Leah Schmid
  • Malena Schneider
  • Maya Sing
  • Abigail Smith
  • Alexis Speece
  • Ava Strauss
  • Patricia Tran
  • Rachel Tschudy
  • Robert Tufariello
  • Amber Urena
  • Ayannah Watson
  • Hanna Winslow

Seniors Take Part in GoggleWorks Fellowship & Exhibit

student stands with her paintings at exhibit

McKenna Barker poses with her acrylic paintings at the GoggleWorks

student poses with her clay art sculpture

Kai Taylor poses with her clay art sculpture at the GoggleWorks

While most of their friends were spending their summers dipping their feet in the ocean, McKenna Barker and Kai Taylor were dipping brushes into paint and hands into clay as part of the Student Ambassador Fellowship Program at the GoggleWorks. The fellowship is an intensive and highly-competitive program that selects up to 16 students from area schools and pairs them with a mentoring professional artist for eight weeks over the summer, culminating with an exhibition of their work at the end of the fellowship. 

McKenna, a senior, was mentored by GoggleWorks artist Zoungy Kligge, who helped guide her through the creation of two “dreamy-aesthetic” open-acrylic pieces that represented retaining childhood memories. After McKenna presented her ideas to Mr. Kligge, he guided her through the process to help bring her ideas to life by first creating thumbnail sketches, followed by clay mock-ups, and then lighting her clay sculpture to help her visualize her work before she began to paint. “I had never painted something fictional before–I have always had a reference picture or something I am looking at that I can paint off of. But for my ideas, they were out of my head and I didn’t have anything to look at. So he helped me construct the idea of what I wanted to do and what I wanted it to be and what I wanted it to look like.” 

Kai, also a senior, was mentored by GoggleWorks artist Kristen Egan, who helped her conceptualize and create an air-dried clay sculpture of Icarus falling through the air with his wings falling apart. Kai said that besides her studio time with Ms. Egan, the process of exhibiting her work proved to be just as much of a learning experience. “I had a second piece that I wanted to display for the exhibit, but a day before the show, it just crumbled and fell apart and I had to restart a new project, and get it done in a night and put it on for the show, so it was definitely stressful.” Kai, who intends to go to college for museum studies, also said that she appreciated being able to see what went into creating an exhibit. “It was really beneficial for me to see how we had to set up for the show, such as filling out insurance and setting prices for our work. Plus, (Ms. Egan) has pieces that are shipping worldwide to other shows, so to have her perspective on that and to see her making a career as an artist was so helpful.”

Ms. Christina Pinkerton, an art teacher at the Senior High, recommended that McKenna and Kai apply for the fellowship because of these very real-world experiences that it gives students–including observing first-hand how people make a living being a professional artist. Mentioning how lucky Exeter students are to have access to such an experience locally to supplement their in-classroom experiences, she praised the GoggleWorks for their commitment to arts education and providing these opportunities to students. “All artists and teachers have various amounts of content knowledge that comes from a wide range of backgrounds,” she said, adding, “It’s so beneficial as an artist to experience different viewpoints so you can expand your skill set.”

McKenna, who is considering a career in product design, agreed on the real-world benefits of the fellowship: “The only experience I’ve had was doing art here with a teacher, which has been great, but it’s always been assignments. This was the first time that I really got a chance to do something that I wanted to do and have it be an actual big piece of work. It was a really great experience and I feel very lucky I got to do it.”

Budget Workshops Announced

As the Exeter Township School District begins to shape the budget for the 2023-24 school year, the District will hold a series of workshops to discuss budget topics with the community. Parents, taxpayers and all members of the Exeter community are invited to join us for these meetings. The schedule for the next two upcoming workshops and topics are below. The District will also post a synopsis of each budget workshop on our website shortly after each meeting.

The next two meetings are scheduled for:

October 26th at 6PM
Location: Junior High
Topic: Overview and Purpose of Workshop Meetings/Index Review

November 30th at 6PM
Location: Senior High
Topic: Revenue

Exeter’s New Supervisor of Transportation Earns National Recognition

school bus driver holds magazine

It's National School Bus Safety week, and we're so very proud to announce that Exeter's Kaisha McCulley was recently selected as one of ten "Rising Stars" by School Transportation News, a nationwide trade magazine for school bus drivers and professionals. Ms. McCulley, who was named Exeter's Supervisor of Transportation during last night's board meeting, has been a bus driver for the district for 8 years. Last year, she became the district's permanent route substitute, which meant she had memorized every route in the district without using a GPS, and could substitute for any bus driver–a monumental task, said Ms. McCulley’s supervisor, Benjamin Bernhart, Director of Transportation. Last year, she also earned accreditation as a Pennsylvania Department of Transportation CDL school bus instructor trainer, allowing her to manage the district's training program for new and existing bus drivers.

“We’re so proud that Kaisha earned this distinction,” said Mr. Bernhart. “She is an incredibly dedicated bus driver and bus professional who is committed to safety and always learning more to enable Exeter to have the best school bus drivers. We are so very lucky to have her, and congratulate her for receiving this national recognition.”