Jared Buzard

RIMERSBURG, Clarion County — Over 15 years, with more than 2,500 school days from preschool through high school, Union High School senior Jared Buzard hasn’t missed a single day.

The 18-year-old Sligo native attained perfect attendance throughout his schooling career. He ends it with graduation Friday night.

“It’s shown me that it’s really important to show up to what you’re expected to be doing and just because you’re there doesn’t mean that you can just slack off. You have to put forth effort,” Jared said.

He plans to attend Butler County Community College this fall to study information technology.

His parents, Cheryl and Jeff Buzard, said it was Jared’s late grandmother, Wanda, who had encouraged him to have perfect attendance. She died when Jared was in third grade, about the time that the family recognized that he had an attendance streak going.

Jeff Buzard said Jared’s grandmother was a source of encouragement for him.

“Her memory kind of drove him to do this,” Jeff Buzard said.

Jared admitted that the feat wasn’t always easy, but bouts of sickness always seemed to occur over weekends, or during Christmas and summer vacations.

He has advice for students trying attain perfect attendance themselves:

“There’s going to be days where you really don’t want to come in, like if you had a test or homework or a project that’s due and you don’t have it quite done. All you have to really do is just power through the pain, suck it up and go to school.”

Union High School leaders gave Jared a certificate, a pen and scholarship money for his accomplishment.