From Kindergarten Through High School, OH Grad Never Missed A Day

WESTLAKE, OH — Making it through an entire school year with perfect attendance is something any student could be proud of. There’s often some combination of sick days, family commitments, vacations — or just playing hooky — that can get in the way of showing up every day.

Blake Wolfe, a graduating senior at Westlake High School, is not only capping off a perfect attendance record in his final year before college, he’s also sporting a streak that goes all the way back to kindergarten.

Wolfe has recorded no absences — perfect attendance — from kindergarten through high school, Fox 8 in Cleveland reported.

“There were so many days that I just wanted to make up an excuse and stay home, but my mom and my dad just gave me that extra push,” Blake, whose headed to Bluffton University in western Ohio for college this fall, told the news station.

Dana Wolfe, Blake’s mom, added that her son “knew that school was very important and that we believed that he should be there every day.”

Blake’s no-absence streak reached roughly 2,184 days, according to Fox.

That’s longer than the late baseball great Lou Gehrig’s consecutive games played streak (2,130), yet still more than 400 shy of Cal Ripken Jr.’s all-time baseball record that hit 2,632.

Dating back to 2009, Blake’s perfect attendance withstood a dozen years of potential hiccups, in addition to a global pandemic that brought on a mix of remote and in-person learning at Westlake.

In high school, Blake played drums in the marching band and was a two-sport athlete, lettering in basketball and track, according to Fox, all the while keeping a full slate of classes.

Remote learning brought on by the coronavirus pandemic didn’t distract him, either.

“Not seeing my friends was the hard part, but I just got through it,” Blake told Fox. “There was one year left and no need to stop.”