Part 4 - 20 Graduates

Humans thrive on interaction and intimacy and relations with one another, and the fact that that’s being deprived or limited to just people in their household is really where it takes a toll on everyone.”

Sara

I hear people asking, why’d it have to happen to our class. Why couldn’t it be next year? Why couldn’t it be our freshman year? But why not this year?”

“Why not us?”

Sara

“We’re like, Okay wow this is actually a really serious thing. Everything’s going to be different. Are they going to close airports? Are they going to close down states? We just had no idea, and we were kind of scared but at the same time we were kind of laughing about it, happy at the fact that we didn’t have to go back to school… It was a mix of excitement but also fear at the same time, using the excitement to mask that fear.”

Maggie

My mom ‘intervention-ed me’… and she was basically like, ‘Come on, get up. Do something. The world’s gonna go on. Your life will go on. This is sad, but you gotta keep going.’ ”

“Getting back into action and putting myself into something was definitely what I needed. It’s just life you know…things happen.”

Maggie

“We’re like, Okay wow this is actually a really serious thing. Everything’s going to be different. Are they going to close airports? Are they going to close down states? We just had no idea, and we were kind of scared but at the same time we were kind of laughing about it, happy at the fact that we didn’t have to go back to school… It was a mix of excitement but also fear at the same time, using the excitement to mask that fear.”

Three uninterrupted high school years and 125 in-person days as a senior helped build a class that continues to move forward despite difficult circumstances. “WAWG WAWN” — a phrase that started as a playful pass-along in the halls — turned into t-shirts, impassioned chants, and eventually a mantra that would help them get through a senior year they could have never imagined.

we all we GOT.

we all we NEED.

Brock

Talking to my friends has gotten me through mostly. They’re telling me how to keep on going, I’m telling them to keep on going. We [are] all just right there together, trying to push through it all together.”

Auldynn

We’re just looking onwards now onto the next war, the next step in life. It hasn’t been easy, and that hard work that we’ve all put in these past four years, we can’t fully close it out the way we’d want to. We just have to redeem what we lost anyways, come back in the next four years, and take back what we got taken from us.”

“My time at MHS is over. Now it’s time for me to leave a bigger footprint in college.”

Sam

No matter how long something lasts there’s always another side to the coin. This is certainly something really unexpected, but it’s definitely not something that can’t be overcome.”