Southwestern Salutatorian to study Aircraft Maintenance Technology through Vincennes University

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Jonah DeArmitt utilized Southwestern High School to the fullest before graduating. The four-sport athlete, student council vice-president and band and choir member is leaving Southwestern as the Class of 2023 Salutatorian.

“There are a few more clubs I could have done, one or two maybe,” said DeArmitt. “For the most part, I was involved in everything.”

With his Spartan career now over, DeArmitt has more time to work and prepare for his next educational track – studying Aircraft Maintenance Technology through Vincennes University.

“I was looking at programs and my mom mentioned Vincennes has this program,” he said. “I have an aunt who works at Center Grove and all their dual credit classes are through Vincennes. She said they have this aircraft maintenance program and you could probably go for free. I said, ‘Let’s do that.’ I love airplanes.”

The two-year program through Vincennes is paired with a second two-year program through Purdue University. All of his classes will be held at the Indianapolis International Airport.

“I will work for an airline or any small airports,” said DeArmitt of his goal after getting his degree.

DeArmitt just recently returned from a 12-day trip to Portugal and Spain with his grandfather – a family tradition.

“My grandfather has taken all his grandkids on one trip wherever they wanted to go,” he said.

DeArmitt and his grandfather, Walt DeArmitt, visited Lisbon, the capital city of Portugal, and Porto and stopped in Madrid and Barcelona before returning home.

DeArmitt is currently planning a second trip with his other grandparents to the northeast to visit American Revolution sites and museums before heading to Maine to eat fresh lobster.

A member of five sectional championship teams at Southwestern, DeArmitt is enjoying a summer without non-stop workouts in preparation for the next season.

“It is such a relief,” he said with a smile. “I remember being in pain all the time from these summer workouts. Coach is having you lift (weights) and then having you shoot. You can never shoot after you lift. It is so hard to shoot after you lift. Your form is just awful.

“I am honestly so glad I don’t have to do basketball. It kept me busy and I like the people but the pain … all the pain.”

DeArmitt is the youngest of three children for Michael and Jennifer DeArmitt. He has an older sister, a nurse in Columbus, Indiana, and older brother who attends Indiana University.

“We’ve been in Southwestern for over 10 years now,” he said proudly.

As one of his final duties as a Spartan, DeArmitt had to deliver a speech at graduation.

“It was terrifying. I was scared … I was so scared, especially when I got up there and was flipping the pages and realized it wasn’t the current version of my speech,” said DeArmitt. “But it all panned out. I really just talked about some of the more funny moments in our careers, funny moments at dances, funny occurrences that just happen … like we had a student who broke his arm playing Twister one time. They took away our Twister mat. I was so mad about it. We were so mad about that.

“At the end, I started talking about our last this and our last that – our last recess, our last lunch together, our last class period together as an actual class. It was a transition from being really funny to hitting the heart strings in the last moments.”

DeArmitt was quick to point out how much he will miss the staff at Southwestern more than anything else.

“Just knowing the entire staff, they are all wonderful people, every single one of them – especially the lunch ladies,” he said. “I talked to the lunch ladies every single day. I will miss them so much.”

This is the eleventh, and final story, in a series of feature stories from the Shelby County Post on Shelby County’s Class of 2023 valedictorians and salutatorians.

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