By Brayden Dirks
This week for the senior spotlight we will be featuring Mattie Dias. Mattie lives in Marcus with her mom June Pallesen and has one brother, Cody, and one sister, Nicole. Mattie isn’t sure where she will be next year but she plans on attending college.
She has been in several activities throughout high school, including band for four years, bowling for four years, and football cheer her junior and senior year. She has received awards for each activity and has lettered every year for band and bowling, and two years for cheer. She has earned a division 1 rating in group band, and a division 2 rating on a solo. Mattie has also participated in honor bands such as Buena Vista honor band and Augustana. In bowling, she made it to state freshman year and was team captain junior and senior year. As for football cheer, Mattie participated in state cheer as a senior.
Mattie says some of her favorite memories from high school were car rides to honor band, making friends with kids from other schools in bowling, and getting a black-eye during cheer practice. She says her greatest accomplishment in high school was attaining the high honor roll all four years. Her favorite year of high school was senior year because she is doing the things she loves and it’s the last year. In her free time, Mattie plays at church services on holidays and spends time with family and friends. She also has a job at Jeff’s Grocery Store here in Marcus, and helps stock shelves and be a cashier. Mattie also does some babysitting and will take daycare kids to the pool. Her favorite school lunch is chili billie and her favorite band is the Zac Brown Band. Mattie says her biggest fears are home intruders, not being successful, and being poor as an adult.
Mattie’s biggest piece of advice to underclassmen is to go out for things you may not think you like because it may end up being something you love. She also says that you should try to bond with many people during high school. She wants to be remembered by leaving small legacies that add up to big things. Her hopes for her future is to be successful and stable in life.