Spend any time around 2017 Eisenhower High School graduate Hosanna Senz and you can’t help but smile at her infectious personality.

What she has done during her time at Ike has certainly brought more than a few of those smiles to her teachers and coaches alike. To say she is a fantastic student would be an understatement, as she was class valedictorian. She excelled outside the classroom as well for an Eisenhower track and field team that just completed its third straight Region 4 championship this season. It’s for all of those reasons that Senz was named the Warren Times Observer’s Female Scholar Athlete of the Year, an honor she shares with Warren’s Olivia Ashbaugh.

She’s also incredibly modest, pointing to hard work as the main source of her success, more so than her many talents.

“The most valuable lesson I learned in high school is the value of hard work and perseverance,” she said. “I am definitely not the smartest or most talented individual, but I have come to realize that through hard work and a goal-driven mindset, I can accomplish things I never thought I could. Hard work reflects your true desires to achieve a goal, and I intend to carry this lesson with me through college.”

She has been accepted at both Slippery Rock and Jamestown Coummunity College, with an intended course of study of pre-pharmacy, with the intention of one day operating her own pharmacy.

That is just one of her future goals, but while reflecting on high school, she thought back to her most fond memories of being an athlete. It was an athletic career that not only included being a distance runner and pole vaulter on those highly successful track and field teams, but also a member of the cross country team.

“In my years spent as a high school athlete, I most enjoyed the family-like bond that my team shared,” she said. “We all saw each other in our best and worst moments and in these moments we encouraged each other to not only be the best athlete possible, but the best possible version of ourselves.”

She was the model teammate, always putting the value of team ahead of her own individual goals and encouraging her teammates as much as possible.

While her academic and athletic accomplishments paint a majestic picture, that only tells part of the story.

During her time at EHS, Senz was involved in National Honor Society (serving as President her senior year), Student Council, Key Club, Club Crossroads, 4-H, Youth Group, orchestra, Academic Bowl, Journalism Club and was the recipient of the Marines Academic Award.

It’s an impressive resume to be entering college with, one that will rival any of her incoming classmates.

She is embracing and very much looking forward to that next chapter in her life, one that will have endless possibilities. “While attending college, I look forward to a new level of responsibility and growth,” she said. “I cannot wait to make new friends and have new experiences. I am excited to be taking more classes that are focused on chemistry, which is my favorite subject, and learn more about the things that intrigue me. I am ready to pursue the dreams I have for my future in college.”