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Anchoring Tribal Review on March 8th, 2024

Something I struggled to figure out to start this year was simple – how do you even send off high school?

365 Days, 364 Days, 363 Days, 362 Days, 361 Days….

During my junior year of high school, Instagram, one of the few social media I’m actually active on, added a new ‘status’ feature. While I initially wrote it off as merely another thing on the app, I didn’t realize how much it (and later Threads, Meta’s competitor to Twitter) would mean to me.

309 Days, 308 Days, 307 Days, 306 Days, 305 Days….

That was until May 10th, 2023, when I had an idea, when I decided started a countdown until graduation. 365 days to make the absolute most out of.

256 Days, 255 Days, 254 Days, 253 Days, 252 Days…

During last year’s Battle of the Classes, Fort’s yearly high school event where the three grade levels (after graduation) fight in a competition, I bought a class banner, which I managed to get a large portion of the senior class to sign. 

220 Days, 219 Days, 218 Days, 217 Days, 216 Days…

Honestly, I’d been really scared for this year. I had signed up for three classes relating to Journalism – and to be honest, I didn’t even know if we would even find a teacher.

192 Days, 191 Days, 190 Days, 189 Days, 188 Days…

As the year approached (with the start of the school year marking 256 days remaining until graduation) I didn’t even know where to start to say goodbye to the year.. how do you send off such a crazy high school career?

137 Days, 136 Days, 135 Days, 134 Days, 133 Days…

Here’s some food for thought; We, the class of 2024, started high school in the middle of a pandemic. We didn’t get to see all of our peers for a year. Our 8th-grade spring break itself nearly went a year.

5 Days, 4 Days, 3 Days, 2 Days, 1 Day.

And yet, with all of that, I regret nothing of my senior year. I truly think I used all of my time as I needed to. I did everything I wanted to, and accomplished everything I needed to. I published 20 stories across both The Signal and KFOI News, I attended so many – at least about 20 – live broadcasts, I helped so many of my underclassmen journalist peers explore their own interest in media, I produced and hosted Fort Osage’s first – and now award-winning – podcast, I created an entire recap video just for FOHS Media’s banquet.

And yeah. I sound like a nerd. But that wasn’t the point.. maybe there wasn’t a point to this editorial.

“So wait? You just explained all of that and yet didn’t even say how to send off high school?”

No. I didn’t say how to send off high school because – the largest lesson I learned senior year – there is no correct way to truly send off high school. There isn’t a five-step plan, there isn’t a guidebook, the answer, and I know, it’s cliche, is this:

The only way to truly send off high school is to be you. You get to write your own story.

And with that, as you read these final words, I am officially no longer the News Editor for The Signal. I truly thank everyone on staff for the experience and the friends I made here. Being on staff for the school newspaper was always a dream of mine – even in like, 5th grade – and I still could never have dreamed of how much I truly enjoyed it. As of published, graduation is tomorrow, May 10, 2024. So long, Fort.