A group of Whitefish High School students were recently tapped to be the first members of the Whitefish Credit Union’s inaugural junior board of directors.

The students, four seniors and three juniors, were selected to serve on the board. Their duties include conducting monthly meetings, writing articles for WCU’s newsletter and implementing a community service project.

Sue Schenck, WCU’s business development director, is supervising the junior board.

“One of the really important functions of a credit union, and also part of the credit union philosophy, is financial education,” said Schenck. “This is a great way to get the credit union philosophy out there and hopefully have some fun with these students while we’re doing it.”

During their monthly meetings, the students will spend time learning about the WCU’s history and guest speakers will talk with the students not only about the operations of WCU, but also about the finance industry.

Members of the board are chairperson Hailey Vasquez, Joseph Perry, Ally Pickeral, vice chair Abby Wagner, Kelsey McFeely, board secretary Perrey Sobba and Rachelle Brown.

Vasquez said she is excited to learn more about WCU.

“I thought it was a really good opportunity and a unique learning experience,” she said of being on the board.

After only a few meetings, several board members said they have learned a great deal about WCU’s operations.

“I was surprised at how much went on behind the scenes,” McFeely said. “There’s a lot to running something like this.”

They were also interested in learning about topics having to do with personal finance such as what it takes to get a loan and how to earn a good credit score.

Sobba said she has enjoyed the guest speakers.

“It’s not really something that we’ve learned in school,” she said.

Perry agreed.

“It’s great to have people talk to us that are experts in business and economics,” he said.

In addition to the education piece of the board, the students are working to organize a community service project.

The junior board is planning to run a weeklong healthy living and fitness program for fifth and sixth grade students at the middle school. The board is creating the program from scratch including formulating its structure and working to execute its plan.

“We expect great things this year from these amazing students,” Schenck said.

The junior board will continue meeting monthly until the end of the school year and WCU plans to continue the program again with another group of students next January.