Posted on 04/04/2020 1:32:43 AM PDT by L.A.Justice
WILMINGTON, N.C. (WECT) - The disruption caused by COVID-19 has been incredibly inconvenient for everyone. But for some young adults, the timing of this lockdown has been heartbreaking.
The second semester of senior year is usually full of milestones: senior prom, senior trips, and graduation, just to name a few. But high school seniors across the state and country are missing some of these once-in-a-lifetime memories in an effort to stop the spread of Coronavirus.
Now, as the cancellations have started, local seniors are struggling to accept that for their class, these rites of passage may never happen.
“It’s devastating actually, because I really wanted to go to prom, and just spend time with my friends and experience my senior year,” Laney High School Senior Rachel Muir told WECT.
Like many of her classmates, Muir had already bought a dress, and had been looking forward to senior prom all year. But for the Class of 2020, the corsage, the limo, and the night dancing with friends looks like it won’t be a Cinderella story after all.
“It’s a hard thing to just grasp it being ripped away from us like that,” Laney Senior Nate Hedrick said.
It’s not just the memories from senior prom they will miss. It’s the looming possibility that other big events they’ve worked so hard for may now be out of the question as well.
“Once everything started getting cancelled and postponed and everything, I couldn’t handle it. It was just so much at one time,” Laney Senior Kamryn Ballard said of the tremendous disappointment.
“This is stuff we grow up looking forward to, since we are in elementary school,” Muir added. “This is what we’ve been working towards. This is a moment we will never get to live again.”
Seniors are grappling with the fact that one priceless experience after another may be missing from their book of life.
“Seniors last year and probably seniors to come, they will get their prom, they’ll get their graduation, they’ll get their senior walks around campus,” Hedrick said. “But with [Coronavirus] going around, none of us are going to get that, and we’re just going to have to live with that.”
While graduation hasn’t been canceled yet, these seniors fear it’s imminent. They say getting your diploma in the mail just isn’t the same.
“I really want to walk the stage, and see my family happy and proud,” Senior Alex Rivers shared.
While the disappointment is palpable, the uniquely painful experience of knowing their cap and gown may never get worn in public is making these students wise beyond their years.
"This is a thing we are all going to get through. Just keep moving forward and try your hardest,” Hedrick said.
New Hanover County Schools has yet to announce any decisions about graduation, and at this point, classes are scheduled to resume in May. But school officials have cancelled prom district-wide.
“New Hanover County Schools has informed high school principals to notify families that proms have been cancelled,” NHCS Spokesperson Ann Gibson said. “At this time, all high schools have canceled their proms and families have been notified. NHCS knows this is a difficult decision for everyone, so it was decided that families would be notified by high school staff rather than include the cancellations as part of a district-wide press release.”
Officials tell WECT they used the word “cancelled” because under the circumstances, it is possible they will not be able to reschedule prom, and they didn’t want to give people false hope.
“The district will evaluate end-of-year activities when COVID-19 restrictions are lifted and students return to school,” Gibson said.
The news media is carrying that water.
If they listen to the MSM they will here it.
That said, the schools being closed down is one very bright side to all this.
It won’t be a real crisis for teens until their phone dies.
I’m a HS lacrosse coach, as my primary hobby.
Our season was finally cancelled Thursday.
I feel bad for the seniors. There were some kids that had spent years waiting to be “the man” and that chance is gone. I told my son that, who is a junior goalie, and he said “what about me? My season is gone too.”
Anyway, saw a funny yard sign the other day “congratulations lakeside seniors. Class of corona”
I’m confused. You said the China Virus deaths are higher in number than Flu deaths. My understanding is there are about 30,000 deaths attributed to this years flu strain while the China Virus has according to released info about 7500 so far.
My wife’s uncle missed his high school graduation too. He was drafted into WWII. At his graduation ceremony his empty chair was covered with an American flag. Real Americans are always ready to meet the sacrifices required to meet any national challenges. Every person that served in the military in WWII was/is my hero. They went to war, won the damn thing, and came home expecting nothing in return. He was one to those heroes. So were four of my uncles.
I said no such thing. Perhaps you are confusing my comment with someone else’s. I said we do not know the real number of deaths of influenza yearly because the death tallies the CDC gives for yearly flu are based on a mathematical model.
I found this out early in the COVID-19 outbreak because people kept comparing the two disease and I search to find out for myself.
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/index.htm
So true. It was a much less coddled generation. They did their jobs and were proud to serve,
Maybe these idled high school seniors can use this time to read our U.S. Constitution and The Federalist Papers?
Yeah...sure...
“The liberties of our country, the freedoms of our civil Constitution are worth defending at all hazards; it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors. They purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood.
It will bring a mark of everlasting infamy on the present generation – enlightened as it is – if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of designing men.”
-Sam Adams
“... or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of designing men.”
My daughter still has hope for the Prom, for some weird reason not scheduled until the end of May this year. She is taking this quarantine in stride— she likes online classes and sleeping in!
_____________________________
I guess it is still possible for some students to attend prom this year in America...That is good...
Ten years from now, graduating seniors will have their first high school reunion...I don’t know how that will turn out...Their Spring semester turned out to be a big mess because of the virus...
My position on online learning is...It is fine for high school students. But, I am not so sure about students below grade nine...Politicians, in CA, talk about virtues of distance learning during school shutdown...I am more skeptical than those politicians...
Maybe this year they’ll even learn that life has setbacks and disappointments, but everything can still work out in the end.
_______________________________
I hope the parents of the graduating seniors tell their kids about that...It is a good advice for seniors...
I feel certain that a group of cooperating parents could setup and operate a prom. God damn, people, the Nation landed people on the moon.
I’m a HS lacrosse coach, as my primary hobby.
Our season was finally cancelled Thursday.
I feel bad for the seniors.
________________________________
CA CIF cancelled high school spring sports a few days ago...
No baseball, softball, swimming, and track and field...
No boys’ volleyball and tennis...
Many of those seniors will not play in sports after they leave high school...
Some high school seniors will play in college...Many of them got scholarship offers before this shutdown...
It’s once in a lifetime. Let them go have fun. They can die anither day.
Besides...it’s not covid, the kiddies call it “Boomer Remover”
I feel certain that a group of cooperating parents could setup and operate a prom. God damn, people, the Nation landed people on the moon.
______________________________________
I think parents could do that once the government restrictions are lifted...You know the restrictions on large groups...
Please! How do they survive a summer with 3 months off! Its only been 2 weeks, shove their lazy asses outside and do some gardening,
No prom might be disappointing, but imagine you are a college senior nursing student just needing clinical time in a hospital or medical center to graduate and due to COVD-19 healthcare facilities have indefinitely suspended all clinical training time and the NCLEX exam you need to take to become certified and licensed as a nurse is also indefinitely suspended.
You are correct. It was Tiredoftaxes who said what I attributed to you.
Sorry about that.
Rockets. It is time to make rockets.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.