Kansas State’s First and Famous Sextuplets Graduate High School, Go Their Separate Ways

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The birth of the Headrick sextuplets, three baby boys and three baby girls, made national headlines in 2002. Now, in May 2020, the six siblings have reached another milestone together by graduating from Norwich High School, Kansas, and plan to go their separate ways for the very first time.

“I can’t even put into words how proud we are of them,” the siblings’ mother, 51-year-old Sondra Headrick, told TODAY Parents. “But at the same time, you know, we’re a little sad.”

The 18-year-old siblings, Grant, Melissa, Ethan, Danielle, Sean, and Jaycie, who are spending their last few months together in the same house, plan to all pursue college educations in Kansas state. However, while they would have graduated Norwich High’s senior class on May 9, their ceremony was postponed owing to the pandemic and resulting social distancing measures.

According to The Wichita Eagle, the sextuplets’ parents, Sondra and Eldon, nonetheless purchased six sets of graduation caps and gowns—red for the boys and white for the girls—which they wore for photos and plan to likely don in the formal graduation ceremony during the summer.

Alluding to the pandemic that has swept across the globe, the siblings all had different thoughts. “I remember the first day I found out,” Jaycie told WKRG. “I cried. I was pretty surprised. Like, everything I was hoping senior year would be was gone.”

Meanwhile, for Ethan, he said the situation didn’t affect him too much as he rarely goes out.

Refusing to dwell on the pandemic, however, the siblings agreed to look to the future. “We’ll all be branching out, probably into larger cities and stuff, so I think we’ll all explore who we are,” said Melissa.

The six siblings all plan to do different things. According to TODAY Parents, Ethan will attend Wichita State University to study technical networking. Sean, wishing to major in cyber security, will attend Cowley College.

Jaycie was voted senior class salutatorian, and her ambition is to study elementary education at Pratt Community College. Melissa and Danielle will both attend Hutchinson Community College to study graphic design and animation, respectively.

“Melissa and Danielle won’t be roommates but they want to be on the same floor so they can check on each other,” Sondra said, adding, “The girls are really extremely close. They’ll stay up late talking about everything.”

Meanwhile, Grant, who is the most outspoken of the siblings, plans to take a gap year while holding down his job at White’s Foodliner in Kingman. “He’s going to continue working and figure out what he wants to do next,” said Sondra.

(Illustration - Dmytro Voinalovych/Shutterstock)

Sondra and Eldon, who also have a 22-year-old daughter, Aubrianna, desperately wanted to expand their family after their first child. After three attempts at intrauterine insemination (IUI), the couple received word from their fertility specialist, Dr. David Grainger, on Sept. 12, 2001, that they had been successful.

“[H]e said, ‘You’re having multiples,’” Sondra recalled. “I told him, ‘I’ve always wanted twins.’” It took a moment for the penny to drop; Sondra remembered the doctor smiling and proceeding to count six heartbeats on the sonogram.

“We did a lot of thinking,” Sondra explained, admitting that she and Eldon were immensely shocked by the news that they would have six babies. “But I just knew that it would work out.”

“I had great doctors and I believed in them,” she said. “I believed that God would take care of us.”

The six healthy babies were delivered by cesarean section at 31 weeks of pregnancy on April 6, 2002. Fast-forward 18 years and all six siblings remain healthy, happy, and anticipant.

Sondra, speaking to The Wichita Eagle, admitted that her sextuplets’ childhoods sped by “quicker than you might think.”

“I do like this age right now because we can have conversations,” Sondra reflected. “But I’m looking forward to seeing what the future brings for them.”

As the parents are preparing for their big move in which their house will be quite empty with only Ethan planning to stay at home as he attends college, they revealed that the two will continue working on two of the jobs they each hold and might not really have much extra time.

“They’ve worked really hard to get where they are,” the siblings’ father, Eldon, told WKRG. “I couldn’t be any more proud of them than I am.”