Waukee alumni

Waukee and Northwest Alumni have been able to find great success in the world after graduation and into college and after.

Jenna Lindberg is currently getting her Bachelor of Science in Nursing at NYU, New York University, after graduating from Waukee High School in 2020. Lindberg attended Waukee from Elementary through high school. Lindberg spoke about taking AP U.S. History with Mr. Kopatich. 

She stated, “He taught us a lot about responsibility and persistence and I feel like I credit him with teaching me those things because I feel like I was very irresponsible up until that point.” 

Jenna spoke about how that class taught her a lot and set her up for success in the future. Lindberg also spoke about how much she learned during her Honors English II class and how useful those writing and comprehension skills have been to her since. Lindberg was involved in choir and acapella during her high school years and choir was her favorite class. 

Lindberg described, “The community that I found in the choir made me really look forward to that class.” 

Lindberg participated in a multitude of other extracurricular activities during her time at Waukee, including track, show choir, cross country, soccer, mentors and violence prevention as well as participating in the Silver Cord Program.

After college, Lindberg plans to take the Nursing Licensing Exam and after that, she wants to work as a nurse in New York City. While she wants to look into going back to school at some point, right now she wants to focus on getting some work experience. 

Patrick Gray graduated from Waukee after being in the district since kindergarten. During his time he was involved in football, track, baseball, basketball and wrestling. Towards the end of his High school career, he was involved in what is now called APEX as well as being involved in choir in band early on. Gray was also involved with the state championship track teams in 2014 and 2015. 

Gray spoke about how fondly he remembers his days at Waukee. Gray stated, “Just the general nostalgia, thinking back to hanging out in the lunchroom in the mornings, the locker rooms after practice were some of my fondest memories.”

Gray took the College Prep English course and highly recommends it because of the application to his life thus far, he spoke about the foundation for English and on top of that communication that it created for him. Gray first became interested in engineering after taking some explorative engineering classes. 

After high school, Gray went to Central College largely because of the encouragement of his teachers and mentors as well as because of his family’s history with his school. When he attended, Central College was starting a new engineering course that also swayed his decision. After this, Gray went to Notre Dame for grad school. Currently, Gray is an Aerodynamicist, a job he started recently, where he will work on the control and stability of aircraft systems.

Gray stated, “The advice I would give to the current students of Waukee is to take advantage of all the opportunities this school and this beautiful town has to offer.”