One Last Ride: Senior Reflection

MSHS Journalism photo file

Senior Sunrise. Seniors gather together on August 21st for Senior Sunrise at Bear Creek Park. Senior Sunrise is a tradition that symbolizes the start of the school year. Seniors will meet again on the last day of school for a Senior Sunset to “close off” the school year. This year, participation was up dramatically as seniors took stock of their “Pandemic Senior Year” ahead.

Left: Rylan Dowling, Sierra Dooley, Spencer McCumber, Lauren Boyd, Abby Carlson, Lanna Searle, Lindsey Dwinell, Davis Ortonward, Chloe Donegan, Dana Gutiérrez-Santos, Tera DeRemus, Grace Trahey, Heidi Martin, Caden Harris, Ellie Wickes, Alexis Harper, Grace Olson, Isaiah Thomas, George Cerneck, Audrey Speicker, Lars Marquardt, Mahlia Glass, Joah Armour, Porter Fredrickson, Michael Vanderwerff, Travis Flett, Kat Yenne, Wally Hoehne, Sophia McKeown, Jesse Jorstad, Brian Blake, Harleigh Moreno, Kianu Flores.

Not only was the stress rising as the class of 2021 prepared for their senior year, seniors were also living through the added-on stress of a pandemic. Through all of the quarantines, online classes, canceled events, and covid outbreaks, there were also many positive things to remember.

To start off the 2021 school year, the seniors got together as a class for a senior sunrise. Not being able to have the sunrise in its usual spot on the MSHS track, seniors met at Bear Creek park to eat donuts and watch the sunrise together before the first day of school. This was the last time most of the seniors were in one place together.

Being on lockdown for almost 15 weeks, the Manitou volleyball team used volleyball as their outlet. The team used their free time during the summer and the first few weeks of school to get together and play outdoor grass volleyball on the high school practice field. Getting outside every day and being able to see close friends for a couple of hours made staying home a little bit easier.

The volleyball team was able to start building connections early in the year so they could have a great season in the spring. Seniors, Mahlia Glass and Sophia McKeown played huge leadership roles on the team and were 100% ready for their season to begin. When everyone thought that things were just starting to get back up again Manitou had a bad outbreak within the football team. The whole football team and anyone they were in contact with had to be full-time online and were not able to come to school or participate in anything going on. The football season got pushed back to the spring and was now going to happen during boys soccer and volleyball. With football now being in a new season, there was lots of new interest in people now wanting to play. The girls basketball team was during season B and after getting cut short last year, they were ready to have a successful season. Being so close to the end of the season a positive test forced the whole basketball program to quarantine for two weeks missing many important games making them unable to make it to playoffs. After a long time, things were finally starting to get back up in running. Although girls volleyball and football are originally supposed to be part of the fall season, they were pushed back to the spring. Volleyball got off to a great start to their season with a 3-0 record. Football doing the same with a 2-1 record so far. Football has a very strong senior class full of great leaders. All 12 seniors goal for the season is to make it to the state playoffs for the first time in a while. Theatre class was able to get started on productions and senior Morrigan Williams has had the honor to be a student director this year. A big project she was in charge of was the Theatre Buffet and getting all of the pieces put together for that. For choir, theatre, and band they were unable to have performances and productions in the first semester. As the second semester rolled around, band was able to start sending people to virtual competitions, choir was doing outdoor and virtual performances, and theatre was able to do outdoor productions while also doing fun activities in class. With activities back in action students were also very excited about being fully in person. Being full in-person school also meant student sections at events, eating lunch with friends, walking the track with other classmates, and seeing people in the hallway every day.

As senior year is coming to an end, seniors get to look forward to many positive things to finish off their high school years. Things like prom, homecoming, yearbook distribution and signing, award ceremonies, graduation, and a normal college experience in the Fall. Although homecoming is usually in the beginning of the year it is an exciting thing to end senior year on.