The Wenatchee Rotary Exchange Program will be sending three students to different countries next school year.

Junior Marcus Pelayo, senior John Kottcamp, and senior Sami Everhart were notified on Nov. 14 that they have passed the local level interviews and will be going to Canada in December  to complete the final interview process and find out what countries they will be going to.  

The students have to go through a selection process of applying in September and then they have to pass a screen test will still being a great ambassador of the United States. Then they have to go through local and district level interviews to show that they are the perfect candidates for the program.

“You have to have an adult-like attitude and maturity level to become an exchange student,” Everhart said.

The students have to be able to pay for their round-trip airfare, insurance, travel documents such as visas and passports, tour fees, and additional travel costs, according to the Rotary Exchange website. Being an exchange student requires you to be an ambassador for your country, open to cultural differences, flexible and willing to learn new

things, and demonstrate leadership skills in your community and school.

Everhart and Kottcamp both want to go to Italy, yet neither of them can speak Italian. “I can speak Spanish, thanks to Mr. [Frederick] Lenard,” Everhart said.

Kottcamp, however, had been speaking German got the past few years and if he can’t go to Italy he would like to go to Germany or somewhere close.

Pelayo wants to go to Spain if he could because he is fluent in Spanish or he would like to go to France because he has been studying French at the high school.

All three students are nervous and excited to go away for a year, yet none of them are scared that they will lose a year of school in the United States. Kottcamp and Everhart will return and go to college whereas Pelayo will return to WHS for his senior year.