BP names Triple A winners

Kolby Vigeland and Rachel Winzenburg, seniors at Blooming Prairie High School, have been named the local 2023-24 Triple A Award winners.

Formally called the Minnesota State High School League Academics, Arts and Athletics Award, the annual recognition honors high school seniors throughout the state who have a 3.0 or higher grade point average, and who participate in League-sponsored athletic and fine arts activities.

Each school may nominate one senior boy and one senior girl, who are then entered into the regional competition, with a multi-level process involving several judging committees.

Vigeland plays football and basketball and is on the BPHS track and trap shooting teams. He is part of the school choir and has been the title character in the past two musicals: “Elf,” and “The Hunchback of Notre Dame.”

Winzenburg is also in the choir and annual fall musicals; she is a member of the cross country, volleyball, basketball, and softball teams.

Both students are on the A honor roll.

“Rachel and Kolby are well-rounded school leaders,” said Alison Mach, the district’s associate principal and athletic director, who made the announcement.

“They work hard, have a great personality, and are great kids,” she said. “Both are role models for our younger students, and we are proud of all they have accomplished.”

Winzenburg was already familiar with the award – her sister Melanie won it in 2022, “so that really pushed me to want it,” she said. “I’m proud of the recognition for involvement; I’m in sports, I’m in the arts, I work on my grades … so it’s nice to be recognized for the work.”

She plans to major in nursing at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa.

Vigeland said the award “just shows all the work we did throughout high school, all the things we did, paid off.”

He didn’t come into his senior year with the goal, but “once I heard about it, I was like, ‘oh, I bet I could qualify.’ I wasn’t really working directly toward it, I just had everything I needed for it,” he said.

Vigeland hasn’t made a firm decision on a college, saying it was “maybe between Duluth and Winona.”

Regional winners compete at the state level, with four eventual winners: A male and female are chosen from Class A and Class AA schools.

Statewide winners will receive a four-year, $1,000 scholarship.