With an impressive handful of extracurriculars under her belt, Seeley-Swan High School graduate Hattie Batchelder is headed to UM this fall to pursue environmental studies and documentary film.
Batchelder, raised in Seeley Lake, capped off her time at the high school as she graduated alongside 20 of her peers last weekend.
Batchelder filled her time at Seeley-Swan with classes and clubs, including the Business Professionals of America (BPA). She joined BPA her freshman year and kept with it through graduation.
Hattie Batchelder, a graduate from Seeley Swan High School, plans to attend the University of Montana in the fall to study environmental studies and documentary film.
It’s a nationwide club for middle and high school students. Members participate in business-related competitions. Those events gave Batchelder the chance to travel in high school, sending her to Los Angeles and Chicago for BPA contests, which also served as a networking opportunity.
“Hattie is such a great all-around student. Her good naturedness, humor, and leadership will be missed in our BPA (Business Professionals of America) student organization and the halls of Seeley-Swan High School,” said Michele Holmes, librarian, business teacher and instructional coach at Seeley-Swan. “I cannot wait to see where her future takes her!
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Batchelder was the club’s secretary her freshman through junior years and was selected as BPA president her senior year.
Batchelder’s byline has also appeared in the Seeley-Swan Pathfinder, Seeley Lake’s community newspaper, too. She’s covered education stories, the Snow Joke Half Marathon, and community council meetings. Writing for the Pathfinder served as a way for her to connect with local happenings, she said.
“It helped me with my communication and writing skills and definitely my work ethic,” she said.
Batchelder also played for four years on Seeley-Swan’s volleyball team.
Like many 2024 graduates, Batchelder’s time in high school was upended by COVID-19. She started high school in 2020 in person, but everyone was wearing masks and classes were divided up.
Hattie Batchelder, a graduate from Seeley Swan High School, plans to attend the University of Montana in the fall.
“That was extra hard as a freshman who was just starting out,” she said.
Seeley-Swan is a small school — Batchelder’s graduating class was just 21 students. But the size of the class gave Batchelder the chance to build a tight-knit community over the years. It also allowed her to build close relationships with teachers and get one-on-one time with them, something Batchelder said was an advantage of attending a smaller high school.
“Everybody in our school knows everybody,” she said.
That’ll change when she joins UM this fall, where she hopes to major in environmental studies and documentary film.
“I don’t know exactly what career path I want to go into, I just know those are two things I’m interested in and want to learn more about,” she said.
Zoë Buchli is the education reporter for the Missoulian.
