At this school, it’s ‘in’ to be a twin

The five sets of twins attending Lutheran High Northeast in Norfolk, Neb., this year will have a hard time confusing teachers by switching classes.

That’s because with the exception of Cody and Jacob Woockman, they bear little resemblance to each other. What’s more, two of the sets are brother and sister.

Cody and Jacob look enough alike to confuse people, but “we’ve never tried to fool people,” Jacob said.

The sons of Brian and Cindy Woockman of rural Stanton are one of the two sets of twins who began classes as freshmen at Lutheran High Northeast on Thursday.

The other freshmen are Kimberly and Kenny Blank. They join sophomores Kendra and Kelsey Dinkel, juniors Michael and Hayley Wallace and seniors Amy and Lauren Aufdembrink.

The Aufdembrinks will be the first twins to graduate from the school, which opened in 1997, said Fred Aufdembrink, the girls’ father and also the school’s development director. Their mother is Nadine Aufdembrink.

On the first day of their senior year, the Aufdembrink girls wore shorts of a similar pattern but different in color.

The similarities between the sisters end there.

Amy said she is more of a math person. Lauren is in school solely to play sports and hang out with her friends, she said with a laugh.

Kendra and Kelsey, the daughters of John and Cindy Dinkel of Norfolk, don’t have similar interests either. Kelsey likes English and Kendra likes art, but both are good at sports.

They say they’re good friends, too.

What a twin can count on is always having someone around to wake you when you want to sleep or mess up the bedroom that you just cleaned. But, also, to help you with schoolwork.

Such is the case with Kimberly and Kenny, the children of Vicki and Alan Blank of Madison.

All 10 twins agreed that sharing can be a drag — especially when it comes to sharing cars and birthday cakes. And singing the “Happy Birthday” song gets to be a challenge sometimes.

Still, sharing does have its perks, said Hayley Wallace, the daughter of Terry and Renee Wallace of Norfolk.

“I get to steal his (Michael’s) sweatshirts,” she said.