Senior Sunrise shines bright for the Class of 2024
The dark sky slowly blends into blue and purple, and the sun comes glazing up, signaling the very start of senior year for the graduating class. Wrapped up like little burritos in their blankets, seniors hold tight to their friends as they prepare for what may be their last year all together. On Sept. 1, seniors were hit with an exciting, but all the while daunting realization that coming June, they will be graduating.
Rather than laying in bed for just a little longer that early morning, Larkin Patsch, senior and ASG vice president, headed straight into her dad’s minivan and went to pick up 48 dozen doughnuts. Patsch, along with the rest of ASG, helped organize the event. “Senior sunrise starts the year off right, with the sun rising and then we end it with the sun setting during senior sunset in June, so the events make a full circle moment,” Patsch said. “We gave everyone that walked in doughnuts and they were able to sit with their friends and take pictures of the sunrise.”
For the Class of 2024, comprehending being seniors can be difficult as the years of high school have flown by for many. Lindsey Freedman, senior and ASG secretary, feels that the shock of senior year has crept up on her. “It was nice seeing everyone reconnect with people they hadn’t talked to in a little bit and just have fun with their friends. This is the event where it hits a lot of us that we’re actually seniors,” Freedman said. “My grade, we started high school online. All of our first day of high school was on Zoom and so for a lot of us, it was like freshman year didn’t really count and then sophomore year was kind of in person but it was with masks. We’ve really only had like one solid year of high school, so the fact that I’m a senior is very hard to wrap my head around.”
Whether an event is simple or extravagant does not matter, it is the people that make the memories worthwhile. Being able to attend the sunrise with her friends was something Anouk Heerma, senior, will forever cherish. “Senior sunrise was really fun. I went with my friends and we all just hung out, watched the sunrise and had some doughnuts. Then afterwards all my friends and I got breakfast. We just sat in the parking lot and everyone had brought a little something that we all ate together and shared,” Heerma said.
When the stress of studying for finals and midterms, wading through college applications and perhaps scrambling through ACTs or final SATs starts overtaking students’ minds, remembering to slow down and truly enjoy these everlasting moments can often be hard. But senior year only comes once, so although those test scores and applications are important, so are the memories. “Senior year is gonna go by so fast, so I feel like we need to take all of these little events and experiences and be in the moment because they’re gonna go by so quickly,” Patsch said.
