News : Class of 2011: First to attend all four years at new VSHS

In 2005, Wyatt Oltrogge (right) and others from the Class of 2011 broke ground for new high school.

Since the fall of 2007, when the Vinton-Shellsburg High School opened, it began a string of "firsts."

The first day of school. The first athletic event in the gym. The first concert in the auditorium. The first graduation.

May 29 will mark perhaps the last of the "firsts" for the 4-year-old high school. The VSHS Class of 2011 represents the first class of students to attend all four years at the new high school.

Several members of the Class of 2011 were chosen to represent this honor six years ago. In May, 2005, several then-sixth grade students joined the VS School Board, administrators and others in the ground-breaking ceremony as the new building began. Some of their shovels even included the words "Class of 2011."

Wyatt Oltrogge, one of those members of the Class of 2011 to hold a shovel that day six years ago, recalls feeling how he and his classmates were excited to know they would be the first class to attend all four years in the new building.

"We didn't know then how the new building would look," said Oltrogge on Tuesday, adding that he liked what he saw when the building was finished.

The Class of 2011 has their last day of school on Wednesday; Tuesday was their last full day of classes. Graduation is set for 2 p.m. Sunday, May 29, in the VHSH gym.

The recent bomb threat, of course, is a first that students and officials hope will be a last. The recent parking lot fire, however, was not a first; the Vinton Fire Department was called to the building during the construction process when smoking materials blew from the ground up to the roof and ignited fresh roofing material.