December 2019. Three months before the virus hit. J.T. Washing, on New Year’s Eve, was enjoying the introduction into 2020 with high hopes. “I was looking forward to my sophomore year of lacrosse. I remember going to New Year’s Eve 2019 and hearing about it [COVID] and being like, ‘yeah, it’s not that big of a deal.’ Two or three months later we’re all stuck at home doing zoom calls. That was so bad.”
Of course, when 2020 came, cases of the Covid-19 virus started to rise rapidly, reaching a point in March 2020 where businesses, schools, churches, and almost all public venues had to shut down. This left people to close their doors and stay in their homes for months on end in a nationwide quarantine. Current seniors were just sophomores at the time and were hopeful for the possibility of a normal senior year, even though it was quite clear that their junior year of high school would be anything but that.
I asked senior Riley Hopkins if she thought that the pandemic would get this serious at the beginning. “No. If I’m going to be honest I was just excited to get two weeks off of track and school but I had no idea we would end up missing a fourth of the year”
Junior year for current seniors was difficult, as the school transitioned from a mix of a block-regular schedule to a block schedule throughout the entirety of the year. Students had three bells a day, all long periods of an hour and a half. We lost our homecoming, sadies, and prom dances to the pandemic, and at this time, current seniors were confused and upset that we wouldn’t get a high school experience at all.
However, senior year was different. Football games were held with a full and complete student section, homecoming was held on the football field, and sadies/prom are scheduled for the end of March and the end of April. “It’s been great to go to football and basketball games and have the experience that a senior would love to have.”
Although life still isn’t completely normal, people are looking with optimism to the future. Senior Kiley Neff says, “I feel like life is starting to get back to normal and covid is starting to become like any other sickness.” Similarly, J.T. says, “Now I’ve kind of accepted it. It’s gonna be a thing, like the flu. Every year it’ll be like you’ll have the option to get the flu shot and the covid shot. It’s like every year you’re gonna have to live with it until maybe there’s a cure for it, I don’t know.” Hopefully everything for seniors this year will continue as planned and we can live out the rest of our year mostly normal.
