When the final bell rang last Friday to signify the end of the last class of the 2024-25 school year, Hunter Lyle walked out of class with a distinction that is both rare among the general population, but a matter of routine in her family.
Lyle completed her 13th consecutive year of achieving perfect attendance at school, joining both her mother and uncle with perfect attendance from kindergarten through 12th grade. In addition, two of Lyle’s cousins had perfect attendance for 12 years and another had six years. Her brother Travis Lyle, Jr. who started in pre-kindergarten, already has 11 years of perfect attendance, after completing his freshman year on Friday and will have 14 if he makes it through his senior year.
“Getting perfect attendance for 13 years has been a very difficult challenge and without my family and friends' encouragement and support it wouldn’t have been possible,” Hunter Lyle said. “I was lucky that I very rarely got sick or had very few challenges along the way.”
Legendary football coach Bill Parcells is credited with being the first to coin the phrase that “The best ability is availability.” In being available for 2,340 consecutive school days, 180 days for 13 straight years, Lyle joined her mother Temple and uncle Richard Montoya, who both had perfect attendance for 13 years going through Mineral County schools. For good measure, Temple Lyle then had perfect attendance for five more years at the University of Nevada-Reno and two after that in the Truckee Meadows Community College dental hygiene program, for a total of 20 years of perfect attendance. Temple Lyle said her older sister Mary Hawkins had nine years of perfect attendance and her other sister Jena Montoya, who died in 2020 had at least six, but less than nine.
In her 20 years, Temple Lyle said she had only one close call, when the power went out one night during a storm while she was at UNR, and her alarm didn’t go off. She had an English class from 8-8:50 a.m. and woke up at 8:30 a.m. She quickly dressed and ran out to the door trying to get to class before it ended, or thinking the professor might let her sit in on the next class to make up the time, but when she got to the classroom, the lights were off and a note on the door said all English classes were canceled for the day.
Despite the Covid pandemic shutting down schools for parts of 2020 and 2021 and four years of playing three sports, Hunter Lyle never had such a close call.
“We were so worried, like how are we going to get perfect attendance with COVID,” Temple Lyle said. “They were homeschooled, and they signed in every day did all their work, they turned it all in and they had proof.”
Playing volleyball, basketball and softball, Lyle did assignments online every day if the teams were out of town for tournaments on school days, even though participating in games counts as being present because it’s a sanctioned school activity.
"I’m going to be honest, sometimes it could be discouraging,” Hunter Lyle said. “For example, I could not participate in senior ditch day and was one of the only few seniors that were in class for that day. However, it did teach me responsibility and dedication and helped me reach my goals academically. It encouraged me to make all my practices and games, which showed dedication to my coaches and my teammates.”
Lyle was honored for her perfect attendance at the Senior Scholarship and Awards Recognition Night on June 11, where assistant principal Cory Sanford presented her with a laptop.
“She didn’t have perfect attendance for a semester, or for a year, or even four years,” Sanford said. “She had perfect attendance her entire school career. That is an amazing accomplishment, and it shows incredible dedication to her education.”
In addition to the perfect attendance award, Lyle was also presented with $7,500 in scholarships at the Senior Awards Ceremony and has also received a $3,000 scholarship from the Nevada Women’s Fund and was one of 10 who were named Outstanding Scholar Athletes by America First Credit Union and Nevada Sports Net and received $1,000 scholarships.
She also is a certified nursing assistant and received the CNA Award. She plans to attend UNR and major in biology and ultimately wants to be a pediatrician.
“I am very blessed to have accomplished this goal, and I feel like it will help me in my future endeavors,” Lyle said. “I feel like achieving this goal can also help other generations. My brother is on his way of getting 14 years’ perfect attendance, and I’m glad that he can follow me in my footsteps and hoping other younger generations can as well. If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything.”
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