Academic Achiever of the Week: Jacob Gutberlet

PARKERSBURG, W.Va. (WTAP) - From sports to academics, Jacob Gutberlet does it all, but helping others is a cornerstone in his life.

Jacob has played basketball and baseball through all four years of high school. He played golf for three.

He has also been part of the student council, church youth group, the 4-H Club, and more.

If you ask him, helping kids has been his favorite high school extracurricular.

“Our national honors society...we tutored kids at the elementary schools and it was just a great experience just going every week to see the kids,” he said.

It’s something he wishes he had when he was younger.

Gutberlet says the biggest stand-out of tutoring has been the reading.

“Probably reading the books to them, because at first they were a little shaky reading, nervous and everything. It was just great to see their progression throughout the months that we did the tutoring,” he said.

Helping people stems from Gutberlet’s roots. His granddad is a big inspiration behind this mentality.

“My grandpa owned a small business, like cars and everything and he was always big in his community, just getting to know people and getting to know business and I really think it’s important for me to do that too,” he said.

This year Covid brought Gutberlet and his granddad closer than they’ve ever been - literally.

Despite Jacob’s home having internet, it’s not fast enough to keep up with the workload of the college classes he’s taking as a high-schooler so Jacob spends school days living at his grandparents’ house.

Jacob says he’s always looked up to his granddad.

It looks like Gutberlet and his family are doing something right. He is planning on attending Marietta College, where he will major in finance. With this, he hopes to go into sports management.

Due to taking college courses throughout high school, Gutberlet will be going into college as a sophomore if he stays on track next semester.

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