ABOVE: Seniors Cooper Gudahl and Belinda Lutterman stand in front of the Cardinal at Fairmont High School. The two were recently chosen as Fairmont’s AAA award winners for excellence in the arts, academics and athletics.

FAIRMONT – Fairmont High School seniors Belinda Lutterman and Cooper Gudahl were chosen for the Triple A awards, recognizing arts, athletics and academic prowess.

In the arts, Lutterman participates in band, orchestra, jazz band, the fall musical and spring play, speech, debate and dance, as well as the community summer symphony. She has also taken piano lessons for 12 years, allowing her to teach piano herself, which she has done for around a year.

Lutterman has been involved in dance since she was 4 and picked up her love of music from that. Through art and teaching it, Lutterman said it has shown her the power of self-expression.

“To not only impact you, but the community around you,” she said. “Through growing up in those environments, I became a teacher. I taught dance for a few years as well at Borchardt Dance Company, and also have been teaching piano lessons as another opportunity to share the love for art that I have with others.”

Athletically, Lutterman plays tennis in the fall. She has done so since her freshman year and was a manager in her sophomore year due to an injury. After originally dropping tennis before high school, Lutterman said she was convinced to give it a second chance.

“A coach reached out to me around my freshman year,” she said. “Not only did I really enjoy the sport and this individual component that plays to a larger team, but also just the team environment was so much fun.”

A current cumulative GPA of 4.3 speaks to the academic skills of Lutterman. She said she has focused on taking rigorous college courses to prepare her for her next steps as she goes off to college. As a side focus, Lutterman picked up foreign language courses on inspiration from her brother.

In leadership roles, she is student council president, student school board representative, handbook policy committee member, captain of the speech and debate teams and president of the prom committee. Through all of these, she said it has given her a lot of information.

“Being a captain of the dance team taught me a lot about how to keep team morale high, especially in a sport that does 6am morning practices and has that long winter season,” Lutterman said. “Through all those leadership roles, it’s shaped me into becoming a person who can better impact and touch people’s lives.”

Lutterman has also dedicated herself to volunteering, having received her community varsity service letters all three years of high school and working on her fourth. To receive the letter, students must have 100 hours of volunteering.

Looking forward, Lutterman plans to attend the University of St. Thomas on a pre-law track. After her four years of undergrad, she plans to do a three-year law school program.

Cooper Gudahl is involved in band, orchestra, choir, fall musical, spring play, speech, and debate. The latter two Gudahl picked up just this year. He said the arts play a crucial role in development.

“Art plays a huge role in shaping people while they’re growing up,” Gudahl said. “I really like to be able to perform music and express myself and what I believe through a medium, like music.”

On the athletic side, Gudahl said running is in his blood. While he has been in basketball since freshman year, cross country and track have been his main pursuits since seventh grade. Gudahl’s biggest takeaways from athletics are how the demand can be a benefit physically and mentally.

“When you’re out there in a lot of sports, you’ve got four teammates or 10 teammates,” he said. “For me, I’m out there by myself when I’m actually doing my sport and competing. The mental game you have to play to be a good runner is incredible.”

Academically, Gudahl has a 3.85 GPA and a propensity to take as many college courses as possible.

“I would rather take it for free in high school than pay for it in college,” he said. “I’ve been involved in everything I can.”

As a leader, Gudahl is a cross country captain and plans to be one for track. He’s also speech team captain and FFA chapter president. Through these experiences, Gudahl said he has learned a lot about what being a leader means.

“I’ve always enjoyed being a leader,” he said. “I used to think it was because I like being in charge, but now I think it’s more I really like seeing the people around me get better. It’s a lot of fun when you’re in a musical and you can not only have success yourself, but help someone next to you get better and grow as a performer.”

When it comes to volunteering, Gudahl said he likes to do a lot of small things to help out.

“I was in Project Trust a few years ago, which is a group that performs and educates younger people about how to protect themselves in environments where they don’t feel safe,” he said. “I do stuff involving Unified Cardinals, where every chance I’m not busy with one of my other activities, I go and we play basketball.”

After high school, Gudahl currently plans to pursue musical education or performance of some kind. He has not settled on a college, but said right now he is leaning toward St. Olaf.