Bottoms up as exchange students visit Lake Stevens

BY CHUCK TUCK | JOURNAL REPORTER It’s the invasion from down under as 45 students and five adults from Australia took part in a three and a half week exchange program to introduce the kids to America.

The 45 students are spending 12 days in Lake Stevens with host families who provide all their needs while they visit Washington State.
This is the last leg of their visit to the states as they have already visited Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Freshman exchange student Megan Sinclair said she has never been to the U.S. before.

“This is my first time to America,” she said, “Lake Stevens is nice, and the lake is pretty. Everyone is very nice too.”

One of the other students said that skiing was a lot of fun, and everyone on the slopes was very helpful.

At last week’s men’s varsity basketball game, the LSHS band, lead by instructor Neil Proff, served up an excellent performance playing the Australian national anthem.

Many of the exchange students stood proudly and displayed their love of their country and sang to the crowd of game attendees while waving their flags.

Proff, who is still relatively new to LSHS, has been very instrumental in many of the new projects including being the organizer for this exchange program which is in its second year at the high school.

“We wanted to have 90 students,” Proff said.

Host parent Jenny Fenrich said that Proff deserves the props for getting this organized.

“He brought this with him,” she added.

Fenrich who hosted a student last year says that this year they made a request for an exchange student.

“The school posted an invitation, and this year we requested one,” Fenrich said.

Students and their host families spend time together doing just about everything and anything according to Fenrich.

However, Katie Booth (Fenrich’s exchange student) loves to shop.

“This particular girl loves shopping, and I think we’ve been about six times,” she said.

The students have visited places like the Auburn Mall, Underground Seattle tour, and the Space Needle.

“They go during the day when our students are at school,” Fenrich commented, but added that last Wednesday and Friday they shadowed the students at LSHS for the day.

Booth said it was quite an experience, and that there were some definite differences between her school and LSHS.

“We don’t start school until 9 a.m. and here you start at 7:30 a.m.,” Booth said, adding that it makes it a little difficult to wake-up and get started that early in the morning.

“The school here is more spread-out and open,” she added.
Booth also commented that lunch was eaten outdoors at her school and not in a cafeteria.

“We don’t do that,” she said.

One thing that really differed for all the Australian students was the fact that they wear uniforms to school.

“I don’t really like to wear uniforms, but then again it would be hard to pick-out what to wear everyday,” Booth said.

Lasting friendships and cultural
exchange make for a better world
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