Although they’ve been enrolled at Marion Military Institute for weeks now, the membership of 25 recruits truly became official on Wednesday.

Marion Military Institute (MMI) held its Cresting Parade and Ceremony, which officially makes the school’s new recruits into cadets, on Wednesday.

For the new cadets, the parade and cresting ceremony is the culmination of weeks of learning and hard work.

“It feels good,” said Wendell Wright, a new cadet from Utica, N.Y. “Through this process we’ve learned respect and honor, and how to be more responsible.”

Alex Henson, a new cadet from Evansville, Ind., said the most important thing he’s learned is one of the main things on display throughout the ceremony—discipline.

“Through all of this, I’d say the biggest thing we’ve learned is discipline,” Henson said. “We’ve learned how to keep things squared away at all times.”

The parade and cresting ceremony brings together MMI’s cadets and new recruits for a parade and military review in uniform where they march in formantion in front of family, friends and MMI’s president Col. David J. Mollahan, USMC (Ret).

New recruits are those who are new to MMI and spend their first few weeks on campus learning the school’s mission and the cadet handbook among other things.

At the cresting ceremony the new recruits are given the crest on their uniform’s hat by their commanding officer and first sergeant, marking the end of their training cycle and officially making them cadets with the starting rank of private.