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SALT LAKE CITY — Add one more to the short list of life's certainties: death, taxes and the likelihood Brandon Evans will be at school tomorrow.
It's a safe bet, based on a perfect record. He hasn't missed a day of school since starting kindergarten.
"I've never had the feeling to just skip class or to be late on purpose," said Evans. "I've always cared about having good grades and attendance."
"It doesn't happen very often," said Cottonwood High School principal Alan Parrish. While daily attendance is just more than 90 percent, he believes only a handful of students could make the same claim.
Evans believes his record "just sort of happened." He never set out with a goal to have perfect attendance.
When quizzed on the particulars, neither he nor his father can explain it. Who doesn't get sick for 13 years?
"We just take a look, are you contagious? Are you sick," said Boyd Evans.
One thing wasn't happenstance, Brandon's parents always planned family vacations and activities during the holidays or summer.
I've never had the feeling to just skip class or to be late on purpose.
–Brandon Evans
"We never gave an excuse to miss a day and then we let them take it from there," said Boyd Evans.
But perhaps most amazing is that unlike most every other teenager, Brandon has never even been tempted to cut class, never make a doughnut run, never hit the mall.
"The thought never crossed my mind to actually sluff, but I did imagine what it would be like to sluff," he said. And then added, "And I think it would just be dull and boring."
However unusual, his teachers and parents praise the accomplishment. "That ability and desire, I think, is why I'm really grateful that I'm his father," said Boyd Evans.
Principal Parrish notes attendance is one of the keys to academic success. But jokes there's another reason for Brandon's record.
"Cottonwood's a great school, why would you want to miss?" he laughed.
