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Yellow Springs High School  CLASS OF 2 0 2 0  A Special Section of the YEllow Springs News  |  May 28, 2020    bl Yellow Springs Chamber of Commerce Yellow Springs Chiropractic The Yellow Springs Community Foundation This experience has made friendships tougher to maintain and makes me wish that I could’ve spent more time with my friends. However, this hasn’t been all bad. It has allowed me to have more time to spend with my parents and brothers before I leave for college. I plan on attending Ohio University and participat- ing in their Honors College of Engineer- ing. I really hope college doesn’t start out with online classes. After five weeks of being back to school from home, I’m starting to miss the experience of the classroom. I miss hanging out with my friends every day before, during and after school. I miss having people to see and places to go and having things to do every day. This has caused me to look more fondly upon my memories at Yellow Springs High School, knowing that I can’t make anymore. My time in high school was good. I had friends that I could spend time with every day, teach- ers who were helpful and people who I will remember forever and experiences, such as the yearly School Forest trip, that I will remember forever. My time in high school will stick with me forever, especially since our time was cut short. I hope that I can remain friends with the people I have met here and hopefully, we don’t drift apart over time. My time here was good. I just wish we could’ve finished it. Solomon Shemano Parents/guardians: Wendy Clark Growing up in Yellow Springs has definitely changed my life for the better. The idea of nature versus nurture doesn’t give enough credit to the environment you grow up in. This town has given me a strong sense of community and free- dom and has definitely changed me as a person. I’ve spent my entire life living in Yellow Springs and have been in the YS Schools system for my whole school career, even attending the Children’s Center during my preschool years. It is kind of bittersweet that the longest time I’ve been away from the school during the school year is happening during my last year attending a YS school. I started to participate in the YSHS theater program during my sophomore year and I was amazed by the amount of new friends I made through the pro- gram. I enjoyed my time during “High School Musical” so much that I pursued theater throughout the rest of my high school career, only opting out when I felt overwhelmed by my workload and didn’t believe it would be responsible for me to participate. I attended the Children’s Center when I was preschool age and I met many great friends there. During my first Street Fairs, I can remember my mom and I would help run the Children’s Center booth. I’ve always enjoyed Street Fair and one of the perks of living in town is that it makes Street Fair much more accessible to me than those who come in from out of town. I don’t have to worry about parking, I can retreat to my house whenever I want to and I can avoid portable toilets. Street Fair shows off the walking accessibility of our town and the numerous local activists, hobbyists and businesses located in town. While I was growing up, I spent a lot of time in the Glen and now know most of the trails. Walking through town allows you to feel like you’re walking with people, while walking through the Glen makes you feel like you’re walking with nature. The Glen has changed a lot during my life. The wind storm that took many trees down was an impressive force of nature and the gradual death of the Pine Forest has been a tragic, yet beautiful development. I attended Eco- Camp when I was growing up, which gave me an appreciation of the extra events that the Glen hosts. Sadly, the Glen Helen pancake breakfast was one of the first events that I couldn’t attend due to COVID-19. The community provided by Yellow Springs is amazing and strong, carried by local businesses that bolster the com- munity to an incredible degree. I have met many friends while attending game nights at Super-Fly on Wednesdays and Fridays. This senior class has unfortu- nately missed out on a lot of things this school year, but the thing that I miss most is the people in this community. I want to thank everyone who has been a part of my life and helped me grow up in this town. Katy Smith Parents/guardians: S cott Smith, Briony Blackburn My senior year at Yellow Springs High School has been interesting. Due to COVID-19, the Class of 2020 will not get to graduate the way they’ve always been told. COVID-19 has affected all of us by not being able to do everyday things such as talking to friends face-to-face, going outside and shopping. There’s also things we never got to experience as seniors, like finishing senior year at school, senior year prom with friends, school events, graduation, sports events, end of the year clap-out, senior pranks, senior skip day and finishing our senior projects. I only get to see my friends and family through my phone with Facetime or Zoom and never really thought or imagined my 18th birthday would be celebrated through an online Zoom call. After graduation, I had planned on traveling the summer before I go to college. It has always been my dream to visit Italy, but I think that will no longer happen during the summer of 2020, or at least for a while. Although everything is different and hard, I have found spend- ing time with my family is most meaning- ful to me because normally I don’t see them this much. I also have enjoyed not stressing over school or a job as much and am very grateful for cell phones to exist so I can always Facetime friends and catch up. Over quarantine, I have learned new things such as cooking new recipes and focusing on my own health by taking extra precautions for myself. I suffer from an autoimmune disorder, so it’s important for me to stay as healthy as possible. I can’t wait to feel safe outside my home and desperately miss spending time with friends face-to-face, eating at Chipotle, getting my hair and nails done and going thrifting. My experience at YSHS has been fun. I love everyone I am close to and am grate- ful to call them my friends. I am ready to say “goodbye” and start a new chapter in my life. In 10 years, I hope to have a family and live somewhere warm. I would love to have a career in being an advocate for women’s rights. I’d like to see myself healthy, both mentally and physically, and overall happy with where I’m at and how I’ve grown. Olivia Snoddy Parents/guardians: Jennifer and Michael Snoddy I have been a student in the Yellow Springs School district since the first grade. Back then, I thought anyone over the sixth grade level was an adult and never thought to be in that position myself, but here I am! Now I am filling out college applications and planning for my future which seems, to me, very surreal. After high school, I will attend Ohio University as an engineering major and be a member of the Air Force ROTC program. When I graduate from college, I will serve at least four years as an active duty officer. Being in the military has been a goal of mine for quite some time, so I am very excited about what is to come. That being said, I hope that things will be able to return to normal soon and that the pandemic will encourage some preventative changes so as to keep a virus from ever doing this to our world again. I also hope that we will come out of this with a new outlook on life and be grateful for what we have that we may not have appreciated as much as we should have before — friends, community and the environment, to name a few. The senior class of YSHS is made of mostly students I’ve gone to school with for all 12 years, with a sprinkling of newcomers throughout the years. Nev- ertheless, we are a very tightly bonded group produced by a variety of people from different backgrounds, styles and interests. Yellow Springs has never been a place of conformity, but a proponent of acceptance and it shows in our schools, which is something I so admire about it. I love my class and hope that we will be able to see each other at least one more time for a proper send-off to our futures. I, personally, would go as far as to say the relationship between the entire Class of 2020 everywhere is a very tight- knit group. The pandemic has made our bond grow even stronger through this unique time. We are all dealing with the similar situation of reminisc- ing about the things we were able to experience and wondering about the experiences we are going to miss due to the pandemic. Senior prom, spring sports and, of course, graduation. We also acknowledge our unique position as we live through this moment in history; a moment that will be talked about for years to come, and that’s something truly special about our class. Spencer Parents/guardians: Cindy Livezey, Deb Spencer Through the quarantine situation, I have been able to spend more time with my parents, which has been a nice change from my usual busy everyday life. I’ve gotten much-needed time to help out around the house and spend time with my dog. While everyone seems to be connecting more during this time now, it poses a problem for any senior. Being asked how it makes us feel, what we plan to do or anything involving graduation every time someone is trying to check-in — it’s awful, not being able to tell people that you are proud of what you accom- plished during high school because it feels as if it doesn’t matter anymore. Most students look forward to their last year, last day or last hour being in high school. Each one of us has been looking forward to each milestone that this final year brings with it. The ability to leave early/come in late, being the senior on the sports team, senior skip day, a senior prank, senior prom, a senior trip, and finally, graduation at the end of it all. Most of these have been things that the previous year’s seniors got to have without any question on if it was even a possibility, and now being the class that will not get to have the rewarding part of looking forward to something for so long stinks. Like many of my classmates, even without graduation, those who are attending college in the fall will be separating. I plan on attending Clark State Community College to complete my general education classes before transferring into a four-year university to complete my degree. We all spend our last year filling it with fun memories with the people we’ll soon be missing and trying to make the year as jam-packed as possible before all of our lives change and we no longer have the O u r S p o n s o r s