As South Dakota seniors eagerly anticipate graduation 2021, some took time to reflect and share with South Dakota Public Broadcasting how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted their last year of high school. Today we hear from a Warner High School Senior.
"I’m Holli Jark and I’m a senior at Warner High School.
I definitely pictured my senior year a lot differently. Hanging out with friends from other teams after games and having a lot more get togethers with students, you know just having a good time and being pretty carefree and COVID definitely had a very large impact on that.
Just a lot of little changes that honestly make a pretty big difference.
The theme that has been most common for me throughout COVID, is definitely, don’t take anything for granted because it can get taken away from you faster than you realize.
We lost our homecoming football game. We didn’t get to watch our boys and support the boys and our senior boys didn’t have the chance to play in that game because our opponent got COVID and couldn’t come play. So, its just things like that that are really eye-opening.
Volleyball was something that kind of was like a get away from COVID. Because once everything started to kind of open up again and you were able to get back into the gym, that was the one place where you didn’t have to wear a mask and you could be with the people that you were used to being around and doing something that you’re used to doing. It just feels normally. My teammates are definitely a huge reason why this pandemic hasn’t been the most terrible thing for me because it’s allowed me more time to just stay in and be with the people that I care and the people I love and a lot of those people are on my team, both volleyball and basketball. And they are just there for you no matter what you’re going through and you can always talk to them.
COVID did offer us an opportunity to really get closer just because we realized that your season isn’t promised. So we really need to make the most of it."