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= Monty Westendorff =

Monty Westendorff (born August 1997) is a student at George Mason University who has attended the school for two years. He attended high school at Thomas A. Edison High School in Alexandria, VA.

Westendorff was born in Evansville, Indiana, located just on the Ohio River that separates Indiana and Kentucky. He grew up in Virginia, but lived in several towns in Indiana and Florida before then. After graduating from Thomas Edison High School in 2015, he was accepted and enrolled in George Mason University's Honors Program on track for a Bachelor of Arts in Global Affairs. There, he took classes in Global Affairs theory, food aid, philosophy, math, astronomy, and HIV/AIDS rhetoric.

Early Life
Westendorff was born in an Indiana hospital on August 23, 1997 to a father who was a computer salesman and a mother who worked in an administrative position at a law firm. His mother, Julie Westendorff, was born in Henderson, Kentucky in a small home with two siblings. His father, Chad Westendorff, was born in Missouri and grew up with a younger sister. Westendorff's parents met in high school and were married in 1997, several months before having Monty. His mother attended the University of Louisville and his father attended a prestigious technical institute.

At age 2, Westendorff's family moved to St. Petersburg, Florida after his father was given another job. The family moved around, eventually landing in a house in Tampa, Florida. At age 4, the family moved back to Indiana, this time to a town called Newburgh. They lived in several houses in the time they spent there. Westendorff began preschool at Crossroads Church, and when the family moved to Alexandria, Virginia when he was 6 years old, he was enrolled in Little Acorn Patch Kindergarten.

Family
Westendorff was raised in two households after his parents divorced, splitting time because of the joint custody agreement that had been arranged between his parents. On June 30, 2005, his younger brother, Grayson Foster Westendorff, was born to Westendorff's mother. Several years later, his father married Westendorff's step-mother, Nirvana Diab, and the two birthed Adam and Aidan Westendorff, fraternal twins. His mother married his step-father, Bradford Nixon, whom she had been dating for several years, in 2014. All three of Westendorff's brothers attended Clermont Elementary, but Grayson ultimately moved to his mother's house full-time to attend middle school in Prince William County in 2015 after it was deemed to be a quieter environment where he could thrive due to his struggles with ADHD and several sensory integration disorders. Grayson is a skilled artist and a charming friend to all who get to know him. Adam is remarkably smart and fills the dinners of the Westendorff household with his witty, five year old rhetoric. As for Aidan, he is the quietest of the brothers, and perhaps the kindest - expressing his love for all, whenever he is not upset with them.

Education
From ages six to eleven, Westendorff attended the public Clermont Elementary School off of Franconia Road in the DC-Metro area. During his time after school days, Westendorff was enrolled in the School Age Child Care (SACC) program at Clermont where he would spend his time until fourth grade, when he was old enough to take the bus home after school let out.

Just before sixth grade, Westendorff's parents divorced, his mother moving to Burke, Virginia and his father remaining in the house in Alexandria. After graduating sixth grade, there was some dispute about where Westendorff would be continuing his education. The area around his mother's house offered Frost Middle School, a highly rated public institution in Fairfax County. Ultimately, it was decided that Westendorff attend the school down the street, Mark Twain Middle School. He spent seventh and eighth grades there and would participate in the honors program, taking several accelerated learning classes. However, he was not permitted to participate in the Gifted & Talented program that many of his friends would take to skip several classes in the math and science disciplines.

At the end of his eighth grade year, Westendorff tested to be admitted into Thomas Jefferson High School. TJHS was ranked the number one high school in the country just the year before, and he received pressure from his parents and teachers to test. However, he was not admitted. Instead, he moved just further down Franconia Road, to Thomas A. Edison High School, where he would graduate with the Full International Baccalaureate Diploma in June, 2015.

High School Life
Westendorff entered high school at Edison with a bedraggled demeanor as he had, just the summer before, not heard from his crush while he spent the summer at his grandparents' house in Henderson, Kentucky. However, he quickly recovered and began his freshman year, where he would finish with all A's and B's. His honor roll grades would continue through his senior year, but he was never able to achieve the perfect "straight A's" that he had sought. This was mainly due to his issues with procrastination. He once commented that "procrastination is my biggest weakness because I have always thrived under last-minute pressure". However, the rigors of his junior and senior year in the International Baccalaureate program made this method hard to live by.

Halfway through his freshman year, Westendorff tried out for the freshman basketball team with lifelong friend, Marcus Bazemore. Unfortunately, Westendorff was cut from the team after suffering a wrist injury during the tryouts. Bazemore, on the other hand, was added to the roster and played throughout his freshman year. Because basketball had not worked out, Westendorff sought another outlet and found this by joining the school's cross country team, coached by Bernadette Flynn. He recalled the first day of practice, where the team ran a mile and a half saying, "I just showed up in cargo shorts and basketball shoes and asked if I could join the team - I also ran in cargo shorts and basketball shoes...". Westendorff continued to run cross country for the remainder of his high school career, placing well in regional races and steadily improving throughout his time on the team, finishing with a 5K personal record of 18 mins.

His sophomore year, Westendorff tried out again for the basketball team and again was denied entry into the roster. His spirits were broken this time after spending the entire previous year in a recreational league run in his county by Denise McMinn. Denise contributed greatly to Westendorff's love for basketball by giving he and his childhood friends a place to compete and learn the game together. Looking for another shot at competitive basketball, Westendorff was offered a spot on McMinn's Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) basketball team in the winter of 2014. The team traveled to Maryland to compete against other travel teams in the area.

Also as a sophomore, Westendorff applied and was accepted to be a writing center tutor in his school's writing center. There he would tutor more than one-hundred students from grades 9-12 and present at several regional and national writing center conferences including the Mid-Atlantic Writing Centers Association (MAWCA) and the National Conference on Peer Tutoring in Writing (NCPTW). Halfway through his eleventh grade year, Westendorff met a sophomore girl in his Advanced Composition class named Megan Harris. Harris was an exceptional writer and tutor and the two ended up running on the same cross country team the year after. The two hit it off instantly and became fast friends by the end of Westendorff's junior year. The summer between eleventh and twelfth grade brought even more fire to their fast burning friendship as the two spent many days together after cross country practice. At the end of that summer, the two ended up dating, and have been together ever since.

Current Life
After graduating Edison, Westendorff attended George Mason University, where he now studies Film and Video Studies. He is still dating Megan Harris, who now lives in Chicago, Illinois and attends school at DePaul University. The two have been together for over two and a half years, but do not enjoy the distance apart. He still visits both houses when he is able to, and encourages his brothers from afar when he is not. He still plays basketball whenever he gets a chance. Westendorff works at the Barnes and Noble College Bookstore on campus and was recently recruited as a Patriot Leader for the Orientation Programs and Services (OFPS) office at the university.