by Kate Evans
Berkeley Springs High School upcoming senior Elizabeth “Ella” Kessel attended the 2024 West Virginia Governor’s School Honors Academy at Fairmont State University from June 16-July 3.
The Governor’s Honors Academy is a three-week summer residential program for the state’s rising high school seniors that encourages excellence in education.
The 2024 theme was “The World We Will Create.”

Students participated in academic and extracurricular activities and developed intellectual and creative skills while exploring contemporary issues that their generation faces.
Kessel attended the Governor’s Academy for the Arts last summer and said that she decided to attend the Governor’s Honors Academy since it was more about academics. Other students she met at last year’s Academy for the Arts also applied to go.
Requirements
The requirements to attend the Governor’s Honors Academy were higher GPA-wise. (grade point average) Kessel said she had to list all the clubs and activities she was in at school. She also had to write an essay about how to be a responsible citizen for her application.
Classes
Kessel said she had three classes at the Governor’s Honors Academy. The first class “Self-Awareness Through Pottery” was longer and more intensive. Kessel learned how to wheel throw and create pottery in the pottery studio at Fairmont State University. The technique is hard, she noted.
Kessel also fired some pottery pieces and did some glazing. She spent hours on technique. Kessel said she have to be aware that every movement you make impacts your pottery.
“I really enjoyed that class,” she said.
The two other shorter classes she had were “Creative Writing and Technology” and “Discovering our Best Self with Yoga and Movement.”
Kessel said she learned about different kinds of writing and technology and how it had changed. They also used a program called Twine to connect story pages through links.
Other classes that were offered at the academy included engineering, biology, screenwriting and literature, Kessel said. There was a broad selection of topics and everyone had different schedules.
Supportive, future-related
It was a supportive community throughout the whole academy, Kessel said. Staff were always encouraging them to understand that they were the next generation and to be thinking about the future. Students attended a town hall discussion where they talked about a number of social issues. They also watched a movie and heard presentations on topics like AI, sustainability and the future of city development.
Students also had their own talent show like last year’s and everyone performed, she said. For the parents’ showcase students displayed posters, forensics and other class work.
Kessel’s pottery class had a display. The social art for change class created a mural.
Theater, field trips
Governor’s Honors Academy participants got to see Fairmont State University’s production of “The Sound of Music.”
Kessel said that they had field trips to the Natural Museum of American History and Culture and hiking and a picnic at Valley Falls State Park.
Academy students also went on two big day trips. One was to the Carnegie Science Center Museum in Pittsburgh where students also went on a river cruise and ate at a restaurant. The other trip was to Washington D.C. where they visited the National Art Gallery and Winegar’s Gallery. Students had different options for field trips, she noted.
What she enjoyed
What Kessel said she enjoyed most about the Governor’s Honors Academy was getting to see a bunch of other students who liked learning a lot. Talking to them and being friends was the best part. Kessel also said she learned more about herself while she was there and explored more about what she can do in the future and in college.
The academy also gave them more of a college experience with walking around campus and living in the dorms.

The Governor’s Honors Academy also made Kessel realize things about her generation — “that we care and progress is possible and that it’s not so impossible that we can make a change.”