NORTHROP – Mary Bennett and Ty Kolbe are Martin Luther High School’s 2025 Triple A winners.

Bennett’s artistry mainly flows from music. She’s played French horn since eighth grade, trumpet for jazz band, participated in district six honor band, has spent three years in the Fairmont city band and does choir.

“[In] choir we won superior rating both times I went with them to contest,” Bennett said. “That was pretty fun. Our band program is really small. We only have about 15 students, and I’m the only French horn player. It’s been difficult because there’s a lot of pieces where it has a lot of French horn parts, but then I’m the only one.”

Although she wasn’t able to attend senior year, Bennett was also in school plays from freshman to junior year. Due to her skill and consistent success in leading roles, she won Best Actor as a junior.

Academically, Bennett has taken nine PSEO classes and Martin Luther’s only AP class, Calculus. The PSEO classes included two U.S. History courses, health and fitness and medical terminology.

“By the time I graduate, I’ll have almost all my general eds done already, which is a big step,” Bennett said. “That’s a lot less schooling I’ll have, which is a lot of pressure off. It’s also preparing me for what the workload will be like in college. It’s nice to get that idea of what things are going to be like in the years ahead.”

Soccer has been the main athletic pursuit for Bennett, dropping basketball after sophomore year due to time constraints. She said athletics has been unique in teaching her about responsibility and leadership.

“It’s a lot to balance all the different schedules I have going on with athletics, school and all other outside things like work,” Bennett said. “In soccer, playing goalkeeper, you have to be able to tell everybody on the field where to be at the same time. Be able to see everything and be the voice for your team.”

Outside of school, Bennett spends most of her time with her church youth group, volunteering and working at Walmart.

“We do a lot of service projects,” she said. “We do area cleanups for people at our church and in Madelia, we always help during their Park Day. They have all these big concerts, we’re always there cleaning up all the garbage and making sure the park is nice and clean.”

Through volunteering and helping others at Walmart as an online shopper, Bennett said it’s helped her foster a desire to help others.

“That’s why I’m going into my medical field,” she said. “I have this love for helping other people. I see somebody hurting, and you want to do everything you can to make life even a little easier for them. Help them figure out what’s going on. It’s helped me to always try to see how people are feeling and be more of a listener.”

Bennett plans to attend Concordia University-Nebraska and enter their medical program. She has received a $ 5,000-a-year scholarship to attend and hopes to get into Sanford in South Dakota or Mayo Rochester afterward.

To receive the Triple A award is an honor Bennett said she is appreciative of.

“Sometimes people don’t see the hard work you put in,” she said. “It’s nice to know that’s been recognized. At the same time, I don’t want to have all the focus on what I’ve done. I want to still be able to help people and show off my talents and give glory to God through it all.”

For Kolbe, band and sewing have been his main artistic pursuits. He said sewing goes hand in hand with his other interests.

“I like being outside, particularly hunting and fishing,” he said. “I’ve made fish skin earrings for my mom, and sewing has helped me do that.”

Academically, Kolbe said he has enjoyed the religious offerings at Martin Luther. There are only around five on-campus PSEO classes, and he is working on completing the last one. These include college history, writing, speech and reading.

Compared to other classes, Kolbe said PSEO courses have more challenging material.

“More activities we had to do and a lot more writing,” he said. “The college writing one was especially hard for me, but it’s helped me be able to write so much easier for my other classes.”

Wrestling is a major component of Kolbe’s athletic pedigree. He said he’s wrestled his whole life, and it comes from his family. He also started shooting trap sophomore year and football senior year to be around friends. Kolbe said he’s learned several skills from his athletic pursuits.

“Time management is 100% percent one of them,” he said. “The ability to just push through mentally tough situations and quitting.

From second to ninth grade, Kolbe lived and went to school in Alaska with his family. After moving to Minnesota, he said Martin Luther has provided him with stronger challenges.

“This school was a lot harder than the public school in Alaska, which is partially why my parents wanted us to move,” Kolbe said “They wanted us to have more challenge that will help us if we go to college or whatever we want to do.”

Outside of school, Kolbe works part-time at Walmart and co-leads the Awana Sunday School youth group. Teaching kids about God has been an amazing experience for Kolbe.

“For my family and our church, God’s an important factor in our lives,” he said. “Every day we want to be the best we can be because everybody’s made in God’s image. It’s important to teach the younger generation that so we can all hopefully go to heaven one day.”

For the future, Kolbe wants to get his journeyman’s electrician apprenticeship at Rochester or Mankato. He said it’s a five-year program in which you both take classes and work.

Kolbe said receiving the Triple A award was pretty cool.

“I didn’t realize how big of a deal it was until my mom was talking to me about it,” he said. “I think it’s cool they recognize people that do all three of the arts, athletics and academics.”