Senior Moments Column: Making the Most of My Year

My school is small enough that we could never even entertain the idea of starting a football team, so our annual homecoming is always during the basketball season. The night of homecoming begins with one of the last few home games. The homecoming court is introduced in between the varsity and junior varsity games. The cheerleaders perform a dance routine at halftime of the varsity game. Then, the actual dance begins after the varsity game is finished.

My classmates and I have decorated for the dance each year since we started high school, as one of our moms is in charge of making sure the dance’s decorations all get set up. This year, however, we also forced the current freshmen to join us, as my classmate’s mom will need a new group to help her set up homecoming next year.

The dance always takes place in the cafeteria, and it has a simple setup. We taught the freshmen how to put together the lit posts and stars galore that serve as our decor without fail every year.

Then, we all went home and prepared ourselves for the dance. It is typical for the girls to have everything prepared at home, simply doing their makeup and hair before the game, then attending the game in normal attire. Everyone goes home quickly after the game to change — girls into dresses and boys taking much-needed showers — and then arrives at the dance usually around 9:30 p.m.

I spent my last homecoming game working in the senior concession stand, which raises money for our weeklong senior trip in April. I didn’t really mind, since I had already watched the cheerleading dance and got to come out to watch the homecoming court to be announced. Unfortunately, we ended up losing both games.

I finished cleaning up the stand with another senior and then went home to get ready. My family and I took pictures together before I drove off to attend my last homecoming. Homecoming always starts pretty slow, but it wasn’t long before the DJ played a line dance that got the whole crowd moving. The “Cha Cha Slide,” the “Cupid Shuffle” and “Wobble” are always necessary dances for our school, but typically our DJ plays hits from our childhood, as well as any requests we bring up.

“Teardrops on My Guitar” in particular holds special meaning for our class, as two of our classmates who we have always jokingly talked about getting together had danced to this song at the previous year’s prom. Of course it was mandatory for us to request the song and make them dance together once again. I dragged different groups of people over to take pictures, as well as got several snaps of my friends and their boyfriends during the slow dances. We laughed, took pictures, drank some great fruit punch and had a great time.

After the dance had finished, I walked back out to my car barefooted and put my playlist back on, allowing myself to replay the night in my mind once safely home. While homecoming is always considered the more boring of the two dances we have each year, we had gone out with a bang. At that moment, I realized even more that this year is rushing by too fast. But I am determined to keep making the most out of it with the people I care for, particularly with my classmates, before we go our separate ways. After all, life is always rushing by, but you still have to savor every moment as it passes.

Shandy Elfrink is a senior at Leopold High School. She has attended Leopold High School since Kindergarten and loves reading, writing, listening to music, and hanging out with friends and family.