High School News

Reposted from the Delano Herald Journal - Robert Hopwood. 

Delano Public Schools has selected seniors Kaia Georges and Luke Gilliland to represent the district at the regional Triple A Awards banquet in March.

The Triple A Award, sponsored by the Minnesota State High School League, recognizes high school seniors who demonstrate excellence in academics, arts and athletics. The program honors students with a grade point average of 3.0 or higher who participate in league-sponsored athletic and fine arts activities.

Students advance through a multi-level selection process that begins at the school level and continues through subsection and regional competition. The league selects one boy and one girl from each of Minnesota’s 16 regions as finalists.

Finalists are recognized at a spring banquet, where four statewide winners are announced. State winners receive a four-year, $1,000 scholarship.

The Delano Herald Journal spoke with Georges and Gilliland about their achievements and their selection as district nominees.

Kaia Georges, student, swimmer and pilot-in-training

Kaia Georges is a dedicated student, athlete, and musician who loves to fly and plans to take to the skies after graduation.

Georges, a member of the National Honor Society, holds a weighted GPA of about 4.17 and earned a perfect score of 36 on the ACT. She was also named a Commended Student in the 2026 National Merit Scholarship Program.

She has also completed several Advanced Placement and College in the Schools courses, earning college credit before graduation. Her coursework includes AP Biology, AP U.S. History and AP Human Geography, along with CIS Chemistry I and II, Calculus I, Spanish and Psychology. She plans to take CIS Sociology next trimester.

Georges said her favorite classes were AP Biology and CIS Chemistry because she found them “interesting” and the labs were interactive. Her most challenging class was AP U.S. History because of the amount of information she had to digest.

“I really liked the science classes,” she said.

Georges has participated in Science Olympiad for the past three years and advanced to the state competition each year. She also took part in History Day in sixth and eighth grades, finishing in the top five at state in eighth grade with her team’s documentary on Kathrine Switzer, the first official woman to run the Boston Marathon.

She said she has earned placement on the scholar honor roll every trimester since seventh grade. 

In addition to her academic success, Georges has excelled in swimming, a sport she has participated in for the past 11 years. She said she previously took part in gymnastics and dance at a very young age but started swimming at age 7 after her brother became involved in the sport.

She has been a member of the high school swimming team since seventh grade and serves as a captain this year. She specializes in sprint events, competing in the 50 freestyle and 100 freestyle, and also participates in 200 freestyle and 400 freestyle relay races.

This year, she finished second at state in the 50 freestyle and third in the 100 freestyle, and the relays placed fifth and eighth. It was her first state meet where she finished in the top eight on all four events.

Georges said she has volunteered for a long time with the Special Olympics swim team as a coach, which she enjoys.

Her talents also extend to music. Georges has been active in choir since elementary school and is currently a member of the high school’s Sound Revolution choir, which she said was audition-only and highly selective. She previously sang in Concert Choir and Varsity Choir.

As a member of Concert Choir, she competed at meets in Hutchinson and Orono. With Sound Revolution, she has caroled at CorTrust Bank, during Old Fashioned Christmas, and at the city’s tree lighting ceremony, and has sung the national anthem at Delano sporting events and the Veterans Day service.

Outside of school, Georges enjoys flying. She has earned a private pilot’s license and plans to pursue a career as a commercial pilot for an airline. She plans to study aviation at South Dakota State University.

“It’s super fun to fly planes,” she said. “You get to travel around for your job,
it pays well, and it’s definitely an engaging job.”

Luke Gilliland, scholar, athlete and musician

Luke Gilliland has distinguished himself through strong academic performance and involvement in extracurricular activities.

Gilliland, a member of the National Honor Society, has a weighted GPA of 4.2 and earned a score of 30 on the ACT, placing him in about the 93rd–94th percentile of test takers. He serves as secretary on the NHS executive council at Delano High School and has also worked as a math tutor, helping ninth-grade students during WIN sessions.

He has completed several Advanced Placement courses at Delano High School, including AP Government, AP U.S. History, AP Biology, and AP Geography. His College in the Schools coursework includes Calculus I and II, Chemistry I, Statistics, and Literature. He plans to take CIS Chemistry II and CIS University Writing in the spring trimester.

Gilliland said his most enjoyable classes were AP Biology and physics. He said biology clicked for him and that the teacher made the class fun and engaging. He said he also enjoyed physics because the teacher challenged students to think differently and pushed them to see how complex concepts work.

He said CIS Literature really pushed him and was by far his most challenging course in high school. He said he is more interested in math and that the amount of reading and writing required was something he was not used to.

Gilliland said he has earned placement on the scholar honor roll every trimester throughout high school, missing it once in seventh grade when he struggled in art. He has also been recognized multiple times as a student of the month.

Gilliland participated in Science Olympiad last year while taking a break from basketball. He also competed in History Day in eighth grade with a project on the Tiananmen Square massacre. His team advanced to regionals and received an honorable mention.

Outside the classroom, Gilliland has a long-standing love for basketball, a sport he has played since third grade. He said he typically plays point guard, bringing the ball up the court and focusing on defense. He said he prides himself on being a hard worker who creates open shots for his teammates.

Gilliland said he is also a runner and has competed in both cross country and track for several years. He said he has been part of the track program since seventh grade and runs the 400, 800 and mile. He was a member of Delano’s 4×800 relay team that advanced to state last year and placed seventh, setting a school record.

“With our school record, that was one of my top high school moments,” Gilliland said.

He said he likes track more, but cross country is more fun because it is more team-based. He said he qualified for the state meet twice in cross country, during his sophomore year and again this year, and that both trips were fun experiences with the team.

Gilliland is also a talented musician and has played trumpet since fifth grade. He performs in the concert band and is a member of the jazz band, having participated in Jazz III in middle school and Jazz I since his sophomore year.

Last year, he traveled to Bemidji to perform at a jazz festival. He said playing trumpet has taught him to stay composed when things do not go as planned, and he enjoys that the instrument often carries the melody.

Gilliland said he originally chose the trumpet because its three buttons made it look easier than the saxophone, which his mother wanted him to play. He later realized it was more challenging than expected because of the amount of lip control required.

Outside of school, he and his father have adopted Highway 11, which they clean once a month. He is also a youth board member of Friends 4 A Cause, a nonprofit started by one of his friends. 

Gilliland said his top option is the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, where he plans to study actuarial science, but he is also waiting to hear from the University of Notre Dame.

He said if he attends Notre Dame, he would study applied mathematics and statistics because the school does not offer actuarial science as a major, and he plans to decide after learning all of his options.

Gilliland said he likes math because it is more straightforward and numbers have always clicked for him. He said there is something satisfying about completing a long problem and circling the right answer.

“And then proving that it is the right answer is just really satisfying to me,” he said.