Grice Connect will share profiles of each of the three Bulloch County Schools 2024 valedictorians over the next several days. Special thanks to Bulloch County Schools for highlighting these impressive students and sharing their stories with us!
Gage Bunch, 18, the son of Edd and Stacy Bunch of Bulloch County, is the valedictorian of Portal Middle High School’s 2024 senior class.
He plans to initially enlist in the United States Army as a cyber-operations specialist before later continuing his post-secondary education. He has already completed four semesters of college as a dual-enrolled student while in high school.
He credits his parents with emphasizing the importance of doing well in school to both him and his younger sister, Bailey, who is 15.
“My parents are extremely proud of me,” Gage said. “Throughout my life, my parents have put a lot of emphasis on my sister and I doing well in school, but they have also emphasized setting the bar for ourselves. Once my parents saw that I was capable of doing so well in school, that was the expectation. Since elementary school, I have put 100% effort into doing well in school.”
Gage has had the highest grade point average of his class since the eighth grade. Once he achieved it for his freshman and sophomore year of high school as well, he began to think that being valedictorian was a real possibility, and he made it his goal.
“It was a close race. We were less than one percentage point away from each other,” Gage said of his achievement and his classmate and salutatorian, Makaila Denise Johnson.
Gage was also the Student Teacher Achievement Recognition (STAR) student for Portal, based on his Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) score. He is also a Bulloch County Schools REACH Georgia Scholar, an honor he initially received in the eighth grade and will now receive its $10,000 college scholarship since he successfully met the program’s academic, attendance, and behavior requirements throughout his four years of high school. Since 2013, the REACH Georgia Scholarship program has been helping ensure that Bulloch County’s academically promising students have the academic, social, and financial support needed to graduate from high school and complete college. Gage is also the third REACH Georgia Scholar from Bulloch County’s ten scholar cohorts to be a valedictorian.
In school, Gage’s favorite subject was math, which is why his favorite teacher was his math teacher, Dennis Moore, whom he also selected as his STAR Teacher. Moore taught him Geometry, Algebra 2, and Pre-calculus.
“I always enjoyed math in school because it's applicable in all areas of life,” Gage said. “I've consistently used many of the concepts I've learned in math in many of my hobbies.”
Gage said he chose Mr. Moore as his STAR Teacher because of his “unwavering commitment to being the best teacher that he could possibly be.”
“His ability to explain difficult mathematical concepts in such a way as to make them simple to understand is amazing. There was never a day I left his class feeling like I did not learn something. Not only that, he was able to make the learning process fun and entertaining. I enjoyed every day of the three years that I was in his class. On top of all of that, he taught everything thoroughly and did not skip over anything. I always felt prepared to take a test or quiz, and I also felt prepared to take the SAT as well. Because of him, I was able to do as well as I did on the SAT.”
Moore considers Gage an outstanding student who is extremely intelligent and highly motivated to do his best.
“He was always willing to help his classmates when they were having difficulty so it felt like having a student teacher in the room. I feel that Gage really enjoys being challenged academically.”
Gage also credits his other favorite teacher, John Gleissner, with his love of music.
“I took band with Mr. Gleissner since I was in sixth grade. He helped inspire my love for music, and I really enjoyed how he taught us music theory, history, and technology.”
Portal Elementary and Portal Middle High School are the two schools where Gage spent his entire K-12 education journey and made close friendships.
“As cliché as it sounds, my favorite thing about high school has just been making friends with some really cool people. One of my favorite memories is from ninth grade when I made s’mores using my science teacher’s heat gun.”
Gage encourages the underclassmen of Portal to be kind to each other and to especially be kind to their teachers. He believes teachers work hard and deserve the respect and attention of students.
