Katie Hensell is a senior at John Adams High School. She represents Adams through her many extracurriculars – soccer, diving, track, and mock trial. Hensell “enjoys soccer because it’s a team sport, it’s outside, and I get to cheer loudly for my teammates.” She calls her diving team “my family.” She also adds, “I like the butterflies I get before a big competition.” Hensell is proud to be a “leader” on the track team and shares her passion for the pole vault with many of her diving teammates. She is a member of the esteemed JA mock trial team. Hensell mentions, “I love mock trial because my team is some of my closest friends and I love goofing around with them.” 

Hensell is an NHS officer and volunteers at the food bank or at a cat’s pet refuge. She adds, “for diving, we participate in Christmas Commandos where we wrap gifts for families who have lost a loved one.” Hensell continues, “I love knowing that even if it is not life changing, it is still possible to make a difference.” 

The “only three sport, full IB student at Adams,” is “looking forward to Northern Indiana Conference and hopefully State meets for diving.” Some other Adams events on Hensell’s senior year bucket list are basketball games and Prom. 

Katie Hensell will be “diving D1 at Lafayette College.” She aims to qualify for National Collegiate Athletics Association zones at some point in her collegiate career. Hensell hopes to attend a prestigious law school after college and then work as an attorney at a law firm. When asked to describe the process leading up to her commitment to Lafayette College, she mentioned, “Lafayette College was actually the last college that reached out.” Hensell explained that, “the dive coach reached out this fall and said he was impressed with my dive videos as well as my grades.” After keeping in touch with swim and dive coaches at Lafayette, they invited her on an official visit. She then flew to Easton, Pennsylvania and got to meet the team, speak with the head of the Government Law department at Lafayette, and had a zoom call with a freshman at UPenn law school, a former collegiate swimmer and graduate from Lafayette College. Hensell exclaims, “After that visit, I could tell that they really cared about my success at Lafayette, would welcome me with open arms onto their team, but most importantly, cared about me not only as an athlete, but as a person.” She adds, “I loved the campus and I thought it was perfect that they [Lafayette College] were Division 1, on the east coast, a ‘little ivy’.” Hensell would commit 2 days later.

Her favorite memories at Adams are qualifying for semi-finals at State in mock trial, watching her cousin’s ‘Lil Mock T’ vlogs with her mock trial team, the team bonding parties for diving, Prom night junior year, and dancing with her team at dive practice. She announced that, “these memories are only special to me because of the people I made them with.”

Hensell continued, saying: “I would describe myself as loud and bold, and I think that I have changed throughout my years at Adams. I learned that it is not important if everyone likes you.” She stated, “I think I have my priorities more in line now.” Hensell is grateful for her circle of closely-knit friends. She believes that these friends would describe her “as loud and out of pocket because my favorite thing to do is make people laugh.”

Katie Hensell believes that she has mastered the ability of time-management after taking hard classes, participating in three varsity sports, and being on the ‘try-hard’ mock trial team. 

She aspires to make more great memories with her teammates at Lafayette, and treat those teammates with love and respect. Hensell declared, “I am proud of the person I have become after four of the busiest, craziest, most rewarding years of my life,” and, “if anything changed, I might not be the person I am or have the memories I have.”

Katie Hensell is “excited to graduate,” but doesn’t want to “rush the last months of high school.”  She mentioned, “I am super excited for [college], but I still have memories left to make here at Adams.” Hensell concluded, “My best advice is to never say no to opportunities (unless it is illegal), because you’ll only regret the chances you didn’t take.”