Ephrata High School
Allison Zimmerman
Senior
Allison, daughter of Michael and Candice Zimmerman, is a senior at Ephrata Senior High School with great character; she’s outgoing and personable.
She enjoys school because of her interest in learning new things. Two of her favorite classes are chemistry and history. In fact, she is taking AP chemistry this year to pursue her interest in the subject. She enjoys chemistry because she feels that her teacher is great and makes the subject easier. One of her favorite classes of all-time was Humanities I. This is because she enjoys learning about early civilizations, which connects with her ardent love for history.
She considers one of her greatest accomplishments to be her good GPA, and a “senator for a day” event that she attended some time ago. When asked what change she wanted to see in the world, she stated, “I would probably make people more tolerant and respectful to new opinions… I think everyone can be more understanding.”
She also mentioned her admiration for her parents. She explained, “My dad is very resilient…a lot of stuff can happen to him, and he still is level-headed, and my mom tries really hard to make things fun. She just tries to make everyone feel included…” These traits that she sees in her parents connect to the change Allison said she wanted to see in the world.
She enjoys painting and drawing, and when asked about her artistic abilities, she humbly mentioned that she is pretty good at it. She enjoys watching movies, working, and reading after school. She works a lot and skillfully maintains a good balance between school and work, a remarkable talent of hers.
After high school, she plans on going to East Stroudsburg but wants to tour the university first. Currently, her major is undecided.
Written by: Breana-Belle Wigren
Makenna Gehman
Senior
Ephrata senior, Makenna Gehman, is excited to finish her last year of high school at Ephrata senior high school, and she hopes to travel the world when she is still young or go to college for crime forensics.
Makenna plays for the Ephrata girls volleyball. She plays outside/opposite hitter. When Makenna is not out on the court playing volleyball, her favorite things to do in her free time are reading and going on drives, listening to music, and spending time with her family and painting.
Then during the fall, she likes to do fall activities like picking pumpkins and doing corn mazes.
Makenna said one of her biggest accomplishments was when she moved to New York and she did not know anyone. She tried out for volleyball, and she made it on the top team.
Her favorite class of the day is business math because it is her last class in person, and she has her friend in the class with her, and she does two online classes, too.
“One thing I wish I could change about the world is for people to understand others and not judge them because of where they are from,” Makenna said.
One person that Makenna admires is her Aunt Mel because she does not let what people say get to her, and she can be her own person. She doesn’t let people influence her.
Written by: Kendra Ingram
McKenzie Souden
Junior
Ephrata High School’s 11th Grader, McKenzie Souden enjoys two things about school: hanging out with her friends and the good, kind teachers such as Ms. Shams, Mrs. Hopkins, and Mr. Marzock.
Her favorite class though is Psychology since she likes learning about the brain. She is an artist, with drawing, painting, and crochet being some of her hobbies, and she’s also part of the National Art Honors Society club.
In her spare time, she enjoys playing video games, such as the cube-based building game Minecraft. After she graduates in 2025, she plans on going to college for psychology or art.
Like many, she admires her parents most in life, her father Robert Souden, and especially her mother, Terra Souden. She expressed admiration of her mom’s persistence and perseverance in life, despite its hardships.
With her parents being role models of tenacity, she was able to take her time to create a clay art piece that made it into the school art show last year. It was a red and white capped mushroom house, and she considers getting it into the show her greatest accomplishment.
Another testament to her hard work is that she has a job at the local grocery store, SharpShopper, sometimes working as a cashier but also stocking shelves.
If she had an opportunity to change the world she’d want there to be less negativity. If everyone were a bit kinder, millions of people could be helped.
Written by: Jinx Canfield
Breana-Bell Wigren
Junior
Ephrata High School junior, Breana-Belle Wigren, spends her time in an unusual manner, memorizing works of literature such as Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” speech, from Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
As astonishing as this is, there are other impressive things Wigren spends her time doing, including belonging to the Spanish NHS, reading, and going on walks. Most astounding, Wigren has influenced her younger brother, who is twelve years old, into reading Shakespeare. Wigren says, “Through the things I do, I kind of encourage him to do other stuff.” As an inspiring older sister, Wigren pushes her younger brother to complete amazing feats.
Wigren states that something she would influence in the world, other than her younger brother, is society’s tolerance for each other and political parties. Breana mentions, “The lack of tolerance is what keeps people so separated… decreasing the whole idea of political parties, because they really keep people divided. Not everything should be a political issue.”
Breana Wigren also enjoys reading and learning, enforcing her love for English classes and appreciation for teachers. Wigren often looks up to educators, expressing, “Their vast knowledge and the subjects they teach, they kind of give me someone to look up to.” Other than learning, Wigren finds comfort in simply being around other people.
Beyond High School, Breana hopes to become an actuary. To complete this goal, she is currently enrolled in a calculus class, and plans on taking personal finance classes in the future.
Written by: Allison Zimmerman
Maxwell Reiff
Senior
There are many pieces that make up the full Mountaineer puzzle, AKA Ephrata High School. Specifically, one of those puzzle pieces is Maxwell Reiff.
On his fourth year of attending Ephrata High, Reiff has decided his favorite element of school is the atmosphere, such as learning and seeing other students.
Out of all the clubs here, Max is a member of Newspaper, Yearbook, German National Honor Society, and Art National Honor Society.
His goal is to go to college for either Chemistry or Law, but Max is starting to debate if he wants to go straight into work or have the military pay for his education.
In Reiff’s free time, he enjoys taking walks outside. Skills that he likes to build on are writing short stories and painting.
If he could change anything in the world, it would be littering. “It isn’t hard to dispose trash correctly,” he claims. He believes there is no excuse to litter.
His greatest accomplishment is either getting into AP German or his acceptance into German National Honor Society.
To no surprise, one of Reiff’s favorite classes is German because he likes the weird way the language sounds. His other favorite class is Sociology because he enjoys looking at why people do certain things.
Finally, an unnamed girl is the person who Max admires most. She is outspoken and holds many unpopular beliefs that Max shares with her. He says, “She isn’t well liked, but I like her.”
EHS will sure miss Maxwell Reiff after this year, but he will go very far in life.
Written by: Megan Rebuck
Mar Adam
Senior
Ephrata student Mar Adam, child of Tammy and Shawn Adam, is a hard-working Senior, who is ready to graduate from EHS this upcoming June.
Mar doesn’t do any extra-curricular activities or go to church, but they do work at the Re-Uzit Shop on South State St. in Ephrata, they say that they enjoy it and think that “It is a great opportunity.” In their free time they like to watch movies, horror specifically, they like to hang out with friends and read as well.
Mar feels that their biggest accomplishment to date is deciding to start therapy. They said, “Starting therapy was very important for me, made me feel like it was ok to ask for help.”
Mar looks up to their mom, Tammy, specifically, saying, “She gave up a lot to raise the whole family” and continuing to say, “She is very hard working and has been supportive of me throughout my entire life.”
Mar says that they enjoy school saying that “It gives me the opportunity to try new things, break out of my comfort zone, and challenge myself.” Their favorite subject in school is Sociology saying it is “fun to analyze why people behave the way they do.”
After high school Mar plans to go to college, first at HACC for two years, and then transfer to Kutztown as a library science major.
Mar says if there is anything in the world that they would change it would be so “People get equal opportunities in everything they do in life.”
Written by: Carter Burkholder
Haleigh Cline
Sophomore
A very active member in Ephrata High School’s extracurriculars, Haleigh Cline is always trying to find ways to be more involved with clubs and activities. The daughter of Sarah and Charles Cline, she currently enjoys being a member of the Future Farmers of America (FFA), the school play and musical, and color guard, as well as the Drama, Debate and Newspaper clubs. She is also active in assisting other students achieve their greatest in academics through peer tutoring.
Despite having such a crowded schedule, Cline still finds time to do the activities that she enjoys most at home. She uses her spare hours to read new books, write her own stories, draw, crochet, attend youth group at her church, and spend time with close friends. Furthermore, you can often find Cline at the local library, both volunteering and searching for fresh reading material.
Having accomplished many things, Cline believes that her greatest achievement is winning $500 in a national contest to create a videogame with a focus on equality. On that note, it is not surprising that one thing she is most passionate about changing in the world is the presence of stereotypes in society. She wishes that people could appreciate others for who they are, without judging them based on labels that others place on them.
Cline’s favorite part about school is interacting with other students and staff regularly, however her Biology class comes at a close second. She enjoys learning about living things, hence why she plans to attend college to enter the medical field in the future.
Written by: Vittoria Faccio