Movie critic Bruce Miller says “Reagan” squeezes too much drama into one film. It’s a CliffsNotes approach to history just hitting the highlights and quickly moving on.
CEDAR FALLS – The board conferring a prestigious scholarship honoring Ronald Reagan believes a recent Cedar Falls High School graduate embodies everything for which the late president stood.
Alex Goetsch, a 2025 Cedar Falls High School graduate, was awarded the prestigious GE-Reagan Foundation Scholarship in California.
Alex Goetsch, 18, received a $40,000 scholarship from the GE-Reagan Foundation in June. He was one of the 10 recipients out of 20,000 applicants.
The Ronald Reagan Foundation awards scholarships to high school graduates who match the former president’s core beliefs that include leadership, citizenship, drive and integrity. The scholarship process took more than six months and included multiple essays and interviews with the CEOs of GE Aerospace and the Reagan Foundation.
Goetsch’s family visited the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, to accept the award. They toured the library and the late president’s private offices, had a luncheon with his chief of staff, participated in a simulation of the prevention of nuclear war, viewed Air Force One and military jets, visited Pepperdine University and completed a community service project for the Malibu Fire Department that fought the Palisades fires.
Alex’s parents, Nick and Amy, said the scholarship is not just about merit, but about character.
“When (Alex) showed me, I looked at the criteria and I’m like, oh my gosh, if there was a scholarship tailored toward the best of Alex, I felt like this was just for him,” his mother said.
Cedar Falls High School graduate Alex Goetsch is one of 10 students across the country to receive a scholarship from the GE-Reagan Foundation Scholarship Program.
The 2025 Cedar Falls graduate believes he received the scholarship because he overcame the challenge of dyslexia, has great work ethic and enjoys serving others.
He has taken his dyslexia diagnosis in stride by shedding light on learning disabilities to future teachers at the University of Northern Iowa, as well as working with dyslexia awareness groups Decoding Dyslexia and NoticeAbility.
“People used to say, ‘Alex, you won’t go to college,’ but actually, that really fueled and pushed me and I had a lot of supporters which helped me be successful and rise above,” he said. “I just really want to foster that kind of mentality through my lifetime and really help other people to really reach their full potential.”
He also founded the Leos Club at his high school, a junior version of the Lions Club, and built a life jacket stand at the new Gateway River Park in the city.
Also at CFHS, he started the Buddy Group to help eliminate the stigma of students with learning disabilities and help them voice their needs. He’s volunteered with the Lions Club, gardening at the UnityPoint clinics on Prairie Parkway.
Alex said he learned his work ethic from his parents.
“I saw that, and it kind of fostered and sparked my drive. Also, I did not like to just sit around doing nothing,” he said. “I always wanted to be helping other people (rather) than just doing my own thing, and so every opportunity that I could find to help other people and put my expertise or work into helping other people and serving others, I enjoyed.”
Apart from his service, he coincidentally has many of the same hobbies and interests as Ronald Reagan. He enjoys woodworking to create American flags and birdhouses to sell at charity auctions, working on small engines with his grandfather to keep them out of landfills and piloting planes.
Alex Goetsch stands below a former Air Force One jet during a visit to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California, where he accepted a scholarship from the Reagan Foundation.
Alex received his student pilot’s license and flew solo at age 16, then received his private pilot’s license at 17. He already has over 200 hours of flight time.
He will attend the University of North Dakota – the MIT of flight schools, he says – for aviation management in hopes to fly for a commercial airline. He also plans to participate in Angel Flights, an organization providing free flights during medical emergencies and natural disasters.
The love of flying came to him at a young age.
“When I went to other countries, I would get to experience other cultures … it brought in my perspectives of the world and understanding of other people better,” he said. “I thought, man, that’d be really cool to connect people and tie people to better understand each other and connect the world together.”
His choice to go to North Dakota for school stood out among the other scholarship recipients, many of whom will attend Ivy League schools. He was attracted to the school because students learn to fly in all four seasons and gain more experience than pilots learning in other parts of the country.
Alex Goetsch sits in the pilot’s seat of a replica of Air Force One at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.
The tedious process of applying for the scholarship came full circle during the trip.
“One of the things they said about Alex was that his work ethic, his kindness, his drive, his motivation, his integrity that he has, they felt like he was like a young Ronald Reagan,” his father, Nick Goetsch, said. “They’re like, we’ve never seen a kid that had all these attributes that was this young doing the things that he was doing. They saw Ronald Reagan in Alex, that’s why they picked him.”
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It’s not very often that you are close enough to a president that you could reach out and touch him.
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Alex Goetsch, a 2025 Cedar Falls High School graduate, was awarded the prestigious GE-Reagan Foundation Scholarship in California.
Alex Goetsch stands below a former Air Force One jet during a visit to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California, where he accepted a scholarship from the Reagan Foundation.
Cedar Falls High School graduate Alex Goetsch is one of 10 students across the country to receive a scholarship from the GE-Reagan Foundation Scholarship Program.
Alex Goetsch sits in the pilot’s seat of a replica of Air Force One at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.
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