Maria Bollo Fernandez has been made a Gladbrook-Reinbeck Rebel this school year as a foreign exchange student from Seville, Spain. Bollo Fernandez has been hosted by the Rasmussen family and has stayed busy through the fall participating in several extracurriculars. Contributed photo

For the 2021-2022 school year, Gladbrook-Reinbeck High School is hosting an exchange student for the second year in a row. Maria Bollo Fernandez from Seville, Spain is staying in Reinbeck with her host family, Kyle, Tiffany and Andrew Rasmussen. She is seventeen years old and arrived in Iowa on August 19th at the Cedar Rapids airport. She returns back to Spain at the end of the school year in 2022.

Since Maria has arrived, she has gone on many adventures and has joined many activities. She is involved in student council, volleyball, cross country, drama, chorus, basketball cheer and tennis. Maria and her host family have also gone to a Vikings game in Minneapolis, visited Wisconsin, and toured Buena Vista University and Luther College as she is thinking about attending college in the United States. They have a lot more fun trips and activities planned for the remainder of the time she is staying with Kyle and Tiffany.

“My favorite memory so far is when I went to the Heart of Darkness with Brooke, Naomi, Karlie, Katie and Rilynn the night before Halloween,” Maria explains. She also enjoys shopping, going to Starbucks and eating dinner with friends. Maria says, “Choir is my favorite class because it is very funny and my favorite extracurricular activity so far was volleyball.” She looked forward to performing as a Silly Girl in Beauty and the Beast and is very excited for basketball cheer.

Maria loves the small town living in Reinbeck, even though she never saw herself being in Iowa during her exchange year. She is extremely grateful for this opportunity and can’t wait to see what the rest of this year will bring for her.