https://soundcloud.com/mshsprospector/the-heiniger-sisters

Monique, Briannah and Becca Heiniger are well known throughout our school for being kind, caring, intelligent people who always have smiles on their faces. Together, they span three grades and many clubs and activities. We decided to take a look deeper into their lives, especially into the inner workings of their family relationships.

Briannah, the oldest, is a junior at Manitou Springs High School. She is a member of NHS (National Honors Society) and Prom Committee, and she runs cross country.

Her younger sister, Becca, describes her as, “Really awesome and caring, [she’s] always there for Mo and I and our younger sisters.” Becca also mentioned that (in her opinion) her older sister is the most fashionable of all the Heinigers.

Next in the Heiniger family is Monique, or Mo, as most students know her. She is currently a sophomore and is considered the most extroverted of the sisters.

In her own words, “Briannah and Becca are just really shy so I don’t think tons of people realize we’re related. Because they’re super quiet and reserved and I’m just… there.”

Mo is the goalie on the high schools girls’ varsity soccer team, as well as a member of NHS. This year, she fought her way to her crowning as Snowcoming Queen by winning the Hunger Games-style game that Student Council created. This involved the “tributes” (snowcoming court) to be covered in blacklight paint and asked to shove each other over in a bouncy castle. Upon winning, Monique said, “It’s really weird, I didn’t expect to be nominated in the first place.”

Becca Heiniger is the middle child, currently a freshman at the high school. Mo describes her as the glue that keeps them together, because of her middle-grounded viewpoints and “all-around cuteness”. She is an active member in the school’s choir and Key Club.

Briannah mentioned Becca’s “cute little boyfriend” during the interview. She was referring to another Manitou freshman named Noah Sobeck. Becca and Noah have been dating for 7 months.

The Heinigers live with two other sisters, Mia, age twelve, and Sebra, eleven. Their family lives out of district, and they make a commute of about thirty minutes every day. After living in Washington for seven years, they moved to Colorado Springs halfway through last year. They say that they choose to go to Manitou because when they moved here, it was in January which is halfway through the school year and a lot of schools don’t accept transfers halfway through the year.

The sisters, like most families, have traditions that they follow devotedly. For instance, on the day of the first snow of the year, they partake in what Briannah refers to as a “Freeze-Out”. This is where, after the first snow, the girls roll down all of the windows in the car and try to make it all the way to the school without rolling them back up.

“It kind of sucks because we usually all have wet hair in the morning. But it’s great, because it’s my idea,” Briannah says. Needless to say, the other sisters seemed less excited about this specific tradition.

One of the sister’s favorite subjects, it seems, is telling embarrassing stories about one another. The very best of these stories, as decided by Becca, begins with Mia and Sebra getting a stuffed animal stuck in a tree. Instead of admitting defeat or asking for help with retrieving the toy, she decided to attempt getting it herself. This ended badly. Though Mo was able to reach the stuffed animal, she was not able to climb back out of the tree. Somehow, she had wedged herself between two branches and was stuck there until her mom called the fire department to take her down.

Looking back, Mo says, “I don’t know why I decided to try and get it by myself. I also don’t know why my mom decided to call the fire department before asking my dad or our neighbors or something.” Despite Mo’s initial protests of the story being told, all three sisters were eventually able to laugh at the memory. The sisters were ashamed that they couldn’t think of such stories for either Becca or Briannah, however, they assured us that they exist.

While the Heiniger sisters (sometimes referred to as the Heini-girls) are eager to tell stories and laugh at each other, they also always make sure to be there for each other when need be. Monique says that she couldn’t even imagine her life without her sisters, and she hopes they always stay so close.