ODESSA — There are 3.6 million high school seniors expected to graduate this year in the United States, according to a press release from the U.S. Department of Education. Of those, more than 5,300 met the qualifications to be U.S. Presidential Scholars, based on college board exams and nominations by chief state school officers and academic organizations. Out of that number, a mere 161 students were actually selected for the honor. Four of those students are from Washington state, and one of them is Madelynn Jae Wagner of Odessa.

“The whole thing was just a shock, to say the least,” said Wagner, who goes by Maddy.

It was Wagner’s business teacher, Terri King, who got the ball rolling, Wagner said.

“She’s also the Future Business Leaders of America adviser,” Wagner said, “and I’m actually the president, so we’re pretty close. I’ve attended the national leadership conferences, and I’ve placed pretty high in the nation.”

“I think she (recommended) a few other people in the school too, but I was the only one that made it to the first round.”

The process wasn’t simple, Wagner said. She received an email notifying her that she had qualified, and she spent days submitting the information it asked for. Then she had to submit the names of recommenders.

“I think there was like three or four people that had to submit information about me, and recommendations,” she said. “It was a pretty long process.”

In ordinary times, Wagner said, the recipients would have received an all-expenses-paid trip to Washington, D.C., to receive their awards. But in the age of COVID-19, the scholars will have to settle for getting their medals in the mail.

The U.S. Presidential Scholars Program was created in 1964. It has been expanded twice: first in 1979 to recognize students who demonstrate exceptional talent in the visual, literary and performing arts, and again in 2015, to recognize ability and accomplishment in career and technical education fields.

Wagner doesn’t plan to rest on her laurels. She is headed to Washington State University in the fall, with the intent of spending a year or two there and then applying for nursing school. She’s got a head start on that.

I actually am a CNA at the hospital,” she said. “And then my younger brother has cerebral palsy, so that’s been kind of like the inspiration for everything.”

Nursing school typically takes two years, Wagner said, and after that she wants to gain some intensive care unit experience and travel in her nursing career.