MARION — Marion Military Institute just wrapped up its 4th annual Knight Fox Challenge this past weekend.

“This year’s event was very successful with over 170 students attending,” said Aaron Calvert, the Public Relations Coordinator at MMI. “I think the prospective students really enjoyed themselves and saw the great things that MMI had to offer them for the next 2 years.”

“Knight Fox is a test of the student’s determination to pursue a military career,” said Sgt. Maj. Dennis Hastings, the director of enrollment management at Marion Military Institute. “It is a 36-hour test of academic skills, physical fitness, leadership, time management and teamwork.”

The Knight Fox Challenge is a recruiting event held by MMI every year and brings in high school students from all over the U.S. and even some students from Canada to participate many different fun physical activities as drill, repelling, paintball and a swim relay.

“Most of the skills are fun-related skills,” said Sgt. Maj. Hastings. “The don’t even know that we are looking for certain motor skills or certain aptitude or leadership while they are having fun with these activities.”

Marion Military has been holding Knight Fox in order to show off the campus to prospective cadets as well as judge those students who come to the campus to show that they are eligible for MMI.

According to Sgt. Maj. Hastings the students who came to MMI from more than 20 states and Canada were all given physical evaluations as well as academic evaluations before being able to participate on campus.

One of the activities included administering the ACT for those cadets who had not yet made the necessary 19 in order to participate.

To go along with the drills and activities, MMI brought in members of the Coast Guard and the National Guard to talk to the students.

The Knight Fox Challenge ended with a banquet Saturday afternoon and many awards and scholarships were handed out to students who excelled in the tests.

“We easily awarded over $3 million in scholarship awards Saturday,” said Hastings.

According to Hastings, the school now hopes to be able to reach closer to home.

“I would like to see a lot more of the Black Belt community take advantage of the resources that are here at MMI,” he said. “As we continue to improve our program we have to continue to reach out to those students.”