"I'm gonna be back (to China) for like a month (this summer) and so I'm really excited to do that," Cole Loos, a 10th grader who was among those on the January trip, told Xinhua.

"I felt like kind of honored, especially that he (President Xi) responded personally to it," said Leo Regennitter, a sophomore at the school.

"I would love to go back to China. I loved it there. It was so awesome," he said.

Addressing the reception, Consul General Zhao said that the US Mid-western region has always played an important role in growing China-US relations.

Zhao expressed the hope that "the exchanges and cooperation between China and the United States could thrive like a soaring dragon."