Germany Trip A Cultural Exchange

Waylon Van Buren's high school days are behind him and he is away at college, getting ready for the rest of his life. He got an exciting and interesting end to his last summer before college. He got to go with the Team Montana German Culture Exchange to Germany and participate in three different wrestling matches throughout the country.

Waylon had wrestled while attending school in Sidney, Montana. When the German Exchange team came to compete with them and learn of the culture in Montana August of 2017, he found out about it and decided he wanted to go on one of their trips. His brother and a few other students he knew had also gone on exchange trips in the past so Waylon knew a little of what went on. Waylon went to his coach about it and his coach contacted the team leader for Team Montana Culture Exchange. This year, Waylon was chosen and he was ready. From August 1 through August 18 he and a few other wrestlers of high school and college age from all around the country flew across the Atlantic to visit Germany and compete in wrestling matches against their German equivalents. Waylon told me "It was a cultural exchange." They visited various museums and a few castles as well as competed. They went to three towns in whole. Aichhalden within the Rottweil district of southern Germany was one. They also competed at Unterelchingen in Bavaria, Germany near one of the monasteries. Then they went to Ehningen in the Böblingen region. Waylon found the trip very interesting and considered it a good way to make friends with the other wrestlers.

Now that he's back in the states, Waylon is pursuing a degree in computer science at the University of Montana in Missoula. He loved wrestling but does not feel he will pursue it competitively. He will pursue it, however. He tells me that the assistant coach at Sentinal High School in Missoula has already asked him to come to wrestle with the students there to help them train.