Katie Janiga, who graduated from Freedom High in Tampa Palms, poses with her brand-new Scion XD, which she won for perfect senior year attendance.

No playing hooky, no sick days, and no missing classes for vacation. It sounds unlikely that many high school seniors could complete this feat. Many high school seniors feel the pressure to take days off to look at college campuses, or participate in “senior skip days,” but Freedom High’s Katherine “Katie” Janiga, along with 150 other high school seniors frrom across Hillsborough County, managed to go the whole year without missing one day.

The difference between Katie and the rest of the local seniors is that she won a car for her efforts.

“I wasn't motivated to go to school to win a car,” Said Katie, “I simply just went every day because I wanted to save my absences for a ‘rainy day’ or if I got really sick.”

On June 25, Hillsborough School Board vice-chair Doretha Edgecomb helped kick things off at Toyota of Tampa Bay on E. Fletcher Ave. to congratulate a select group of students on their graduations, as well as their impressive attendance records at the “Perfect Car for Perfect Attendance” event. The event was created by the Toyota dealership as an incentive for students to faithfully attend school.

At the car lot, Edgecomb chose 20 names at random from among the 150 students in attendance, then those 20 students would then be allowed to pick a key from a fishbowl and see if it would start the brand new 2011 Scion XD (base price $15,045).

Even before winning the car, Katie admired it, “It really is sporty, stylish and the perfect sizes for an upcoming college student like myself,” she said.

Katie, who is headed to the University of Tennessee in the fall, was the 10th name drawn by Edgecomb. She was then deemed the winner of the silver sedan after the key she had chosen opened the door and started the ignition.

“The moment when my key turned all the way to unlock the door, I opened that car door so slowly...it felt like I was dreaming!,” said Katie.

The group of recent graduates included nine students who had perfect attendance from kindergarten through graduation.