20200522_SrTab

8 Yellow Springs High School  CLASS OF 2020 A Special Section of the Yellow Springs News | May 28, 2020 Re/Max Victory, Chris & Rick Kristensen Reichley Insurance Agency Sage Strings, Marna Street made my life less of a drag, even if it was a pain at times. I don’t really think I’d change anything because each obstacle is a learning experience. You live and you learn and you come to terms with your mistakes. One thing I value the most is happiness, because true happiness is hard to find, even if it’s right in front of you. Sometimes you have to go through agony to find real peace from within. I don’t really know what the next 10 years hold for me because I can’t look that far into the future even if I tried. I don’t even know what I want to major in. However, I plan on going to Antioch and when I’m finished there, I want to travel. I might even write a book or two if I’m inspired. I might even create some art along the way while I’m at it. I might not know what I want to be and I might not know what I want to do, but one thing I know is that I’ll never steer away from who I am and I’ll never forget where I’m from. Believe it! Jane Meister Parents/guardians: Dave Meister, Zo Van Eaton-Meister COVID-19 has impacted my normal way of life severely, resulting in my last year of high school not being even remotely like what I had expected. For all of my years in school I have looked for- ward to participating in senior pranks, skip day, my last prom and the senior and summer School Forest trips. Now with none of this being possible due to the school closure and the coronavirus, I am profoundly sad that I can no longer see my friends or make memories together as we wrap up the end of our senior year. My focus is on the future because, through all of this, keeping my dreams alive inspires hope. Next year I will be attending the University of Dayton in their Science Discovery program. This will help me determine my career path in the medical field. My goal is to be a physician or a physician’s assistant. Our small town school experience is valuable because you get to know all of your classmates very well and growing up together gives you that close-knit community experience. Some of the changes that I hope to see in the future are major improvements in social jus- tice and transparency in our governing systems, both local as well as national. Anything is possible, right? Anna Millar Parents/guardians: Lynn and Jeremy Millar Most of these pieces that you read will be about growing up in Yellow Springs and how it shaped people’s lives. My story is different, though, because I did not grow up here. Rather, I grew up all over the country — from Tennessee to Nevada to Ohio to Alabama and finally back to Ohio. This has given me many opportunities and experiences very different from the life experience of growing up in one small town. I went to five different schools before I landed at Yellow Springs High School. Through all of that movement, I learned that there was something special and unique about each school commu- nity I experienced. But YS schools have been the most unique by far. I moved to these schools because my mom believed they were better than the school I was going to at the time. In some ways, she was right — and others, not so much. MMS and YSHS are different from any- where else I went to school, and just like everywhere else, they taught me some valuable lessons. I was taught to learn in a more group focused setting because of the PBL style of learning employed by YS schools. I also learned great persistence in seeking excellence while going to YSHS. For me personally, it was ideal to seek out different ways to experience English classes and I found just that through the College Credit Plus program. I worked very hard to graduate with honors a full year early because I feel driven to move forward to college and experience life as fully as I can. As a result, the summer after my sophomore year I took two classes at Wright State University, along with three online classes. This year, I took two more classes at Wright State to finish my experience. Sadly, my final year has been marred by the COVID-19 pandemic. I was looking forward to my last show and the senior clap-out. Even more than that, what I was most looking forward to was walk- ing across the stage at graduation. Yet despite all of the disappointment that has flooded us recently, I have decided to look up rather than down. All of this is giving me a very valuable experience for my life overall as well as my future career after I get my journal- ism degree at Ohio University’s Scripps School of Journalism. From there, I plan to become a war correspondent. So, this experience with the nation- wide and even worldwide response to such an unusual issue will give me an edge to reporting in the future. I am very excited to continue my journey and see where exactly my life goes, challenges and triumphs alike. Jay Millman Parents/guardians: Harry Millman, Patty Laube The most meaningful thing to me about Yellow Springs is that it’s the town I was born in and where I grew up. Olivia Mitchell Parents/guardians: Jamie and David Mitchell Named Olivia after a character in my mother’s all-time favorite movie, “The Color Purple,” I went home from the hospital to a small country house in Cedarville, Ohio. My family eventually purchased a home in Springfield, Ohio in 2005, where I attended Springfield City Schools up to my seventh grade year. Over the summer months, my parents ultimately decided my home district was not a good fit for me, and so I began the 2015–2016 school year as an open enrollment student of Yellow Springs Schools. It was my eighth grade year. After the initial culture shock and lack of confidence, I found myself beginning to adjust to the free-spirited, yet nurtur- ing new environment. The art danced with color down the hallways and my quirky, beloved teachers and the laughter of new friends made learning exciting and worth the effort. My whole high school career has been amazing and I was going full-steam towards the finish line of my senior year — until a couple of months ago, and then my little world crumbled. I was looking forward to prom, senior prank and seeing all of my family sitting in the stands watching me receive my diploma and race onto the next chapter of my life, but unfortunately things don’t always go as planned. COVID-19 has impacted myself and my family tremendously. My parents have worked hard to save for my special day, and now they have to adjust plans in the worst way. It has been diffi- cult to stay motivated; sometimes I shed a tear or two reflecting on how most of my classmates and I started off life during or immediately following the terrorist attacks of 9/11, and now we are made to start adulthood during this horrible pandemic. I have been working a part-time job at a nursing and rehabilitation facility as a universal worker while taking STNA classes. It keeps me busy and gives me insight on things to come as I plan on continuing my career in the medical field. My plan after graduation is to attend Sinclair Community College in Dayton for two years to get my Licensed Practi- cal Nursing Degree. Once I’ve obtained that, I will be off to Atlanta, Ga. to attend Spelman University and get my degree as a registered nurse with a focus on midwifery. In the next five years, I hope to be working on a busy labor and delivery unit. I hope to have a husband and some kids who enjoy summers abroad and a lifetime of memories with each passport stamp. The most meaningful and valuable thing I have learned in high school is the meaning of positive peers and dedicated teachers. I have met the greatest people while attending Yellow Springs High School and McKinney Middle School. The love, respect and patience that all of the students and staff have expressed towards me has been amazing. I have never felt so cared for and loved outside of my mother’s and father’s four walls. Thank you all from my soul. What a cherished experience I will undoubtedly carry with me into the next phase of my life. I am proud to now call myself an alumna, and the Class of 2020 are real survivors, through and through. GO BULLDOGS. Sam Nielsen Parents/guardians: Christy and Mark Nielsen My experience at YS has been a mostly positive one, though I am definitely ready and excited to move on. More than any- thing else, the people I’ve met here will have a lasting impact on me. Although this town is certainly not the hugely diverse and accepting melting pot some think it is, there are plenty of different types of people here. It’s those people I will remember, friend and foe alike, for years to come. I was looking forward to rounding out my high school experience with these people, my friends, teachers and family. It was supposed to be the best part of high school, a little reward for trudging through 13 years of school- ing in this town. I was excited to gather together as a class and celebrate leaving YSHS, and to play my last season with the Community Band. There are people who I’ve known for years, and who have been huge impacts on me, that I may never see again. It’s a pessimistic view, but I don’t think it’s unwarranted. Leaving town now with a good final impression will be difficult. I will always remember YS fondly, and I think unlike some other students, I’m not desperate to leave this place and never come back. But I do want to leave, and I want to leave content. The coronavirus has made it hard to fulfill that feeling, since the most impor- tant part of this town for me has always been my relationships within it. But those relationships and the things I learned from them will surely stick with me as I go on with my life, and I can’t really imagine a better background for me to grow up in than YS. O u r S p o n s o r s