SELINSGROVE — A brutal bout with the seasonal flu a few years ago prompted Selinsgrove Area High School student Jon Bixler to get vaccinated against H1N1 Wednesday afternoon.

“I don’t want to get that sick again,” he said as he walked into the H1N1 vaccination clinic offered at the middle school.

More than 600 district students received the vaccine during a 10-hour clinic staffed by school nurses and volunteers.

Selinsgrove is among the first schools in the Valley to vaccinate students against H1N1 because officials were quick to request the medicine from the state Department of Health, said Chuck Longwell, high school assistant principal.

Longwell credited school nurses Melissa Bechtel and Melinda Spriggle with coordinating the clinic.

The district received 1,500 doses of the vaccine and 2,000 doses of nasal spray to distribute, with some of the younger students requiring two doses over a three-week period.

Superintendent Frederick Johnson said the school district had no say in how many doses it would get, and received fewer than the 4,000 doses requested for its 2,700 student population.

Many turned out for the vaccination Wednesday, a day off from school for students in observance of Veterans Day.

“About 150 people were here at 9 a.m. and we’re getting about 100 people an hour,” Longwell said in the early afternoon.

Johnson on Wednesday night said nurses and volunteers had distributed more than 600 vaccines by 4 p.m. The clinic ended at 8.

As of Tuesday, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had allocated more than 1.3 million doses of the swine flu vaccine in Pennsylvania, according to the state Department of Health.

The vaccine has been distributed to 1,076 certified providers in the state, including schools, pediatricians, family health practitioners, obstetricians and hospitals that agreed to target people most vulnerable to complications from the H1N1 virus.

That includes pregnant women, medical providers and the young.

Other Valley schools are planning to offer the H1N1 vaccine as soon as they receive the doses.

The Danville Area School District has a clinic scheduled from 4 to 7 tonight at Liberty-Valley Intermediate School.