60+ college and military representatives gathered at Fort Walton Beach High School on Wednesday for the school’s fourth annual Viking Voyage College Fair, offering 10th through 12th graders a direct line to their post-secondary futures.

• The event, held from 9 to 11 a.m. in the school’s gym, brought together four-year and two-year colleges, technical schools, private universities and all branches of the military. The school initially expected just north of 60 representatives, but additional institutions showed up the day of the event wanting to be involved.

Dr. Linda Dugan, the school’s professional school counselor who organizes the annual fair, said the door is always open to schools wanting to get in front of the student body.

“One of the most important things is to never turn anyone away, because anything that helps our students is probably the most important factor in it,” Dugan said.

The fair is one of two the school hosts each year under the Viking Voyage banner. The fall edition focuses on college and military opportunities, while a separate career-focused fair is held in the spring.

This year’s fair featured a wide range of institutions, including local options such as Northwest Florida State College, Okaloosa Technical College and the University of West Florida, as well as representatives from Full Sail and as far away as Missouri.

Bailey Choi, a senior who serves as a guidance aide for Dugan, has helped organize the fair for three years. She first attended as a freshman and said the shift to the other side of the event gave her a new perspective.

• “This is such a wide range of colleges here from all over,” Choi said. “If you don’t know where you want go to college, this is a fantastic way to get to know people face to face instead of just over a website.”

Choi said the preparation begins weeks in advance, from coordinating with colleges to organizing hospitality for the representatives. As a senior now weighing her own college decision, she said the fair gave her a chance to connect directly with schools she’s considering, including FSU, where both of her sisters attend, along with SCU and Samford.

“You can get that on a school’s website, but it’s really nice to talk to a representative, all in one place,” Choi said.

Outside of her role as a guidance aide, Choi is involved in the Viking Ladies and Care Crew and serves as captain of the school’s Fellowship of Christian Athletes chapter. She said the fair has been a good way to build the kind of organizational and leadership skills she wants to pursue after high school.

To prepare students for the event, counselor Susan Versteeg worked with classroom teachers to introduce them to Xello, a platform where students can take matchmaker-style quizzes to explore potential college and career fits. Students were also given question sheets to help guide their conversations with representatives.

• “Sometimes students don’t know what to ask,” said Lydia Hanneken, assistant principal. “She helps give them those questions — takes the edge off of having a conversation with an adult they don’t necessarily know.”

Throughout the fair, teachers, administrators and school staff circulated the gymnasium, actively encouraging students to engage with the representatives. In some cases, that meant pulling hesitant students off the wall and walking them directly to a table.

Dugan said that level of engagement is a schoolwide focus.

“It’s that engagement piece that is so important,” Dugan said. “Just making sure that they’re actually engaged in an opportunity to learn.”

She noted that during last year’s fair, students received scholarship offers on the spot, including one from Florida Tech.

Dugan also pointed to the value of the military presence at the fair, saying that in a military community, representatives can connect students with education funding opportunities through programs like the Reserve.

• “Just making those connections is the biggest key,” Dugan said.

Hanneken said the student response to the fair is a good indicator that the school has built something students look forward to each year.

“My son’s a sophomore this year, and on the way to school, he said, ‘Do I get to go to the college fair this year?‘” Hanneken said. “And for a 15-year-old boy, I don’t think you can get higher praise.”

For Dugan, like every year, she measure’s the value of the event one student at a time.

“To just reach one kid,” Dugan said. “If that one child can gain anything, just that one piece of information, then you’ve done your job.”

As the seniors were leaving the gym and the juniors were making their way inside, she added: “But I think it’s way more than one student today.”