After 590 days of student sections lit aglow by Friday night lights, lunches spent clustered around circular tables and a myriad of exciting moments, the sun has finally risen on the Class of 2022’s final days as Highlanders. On March 16 ,the seniors joined together on the football field to celebrate the start of their third trimester.

“Senior sunrise has truly been one of my favorite events all year,” Sarah Matthews, senior, said. “It was

so much fun being with the people that I’ve gone to school with for the past 12 years and celebrating all the new chapters of our lives.”

When members of the senior class were polled and asked how they feel about their impending graduation date that is just 75 days away, the overwhelming work used to describe their current emotions was “bittersweet” while “sad,” “tremendous,” “nerve-wracking” and “lit” were also mentioned.

These sentiments aligned with the unorthodox high school experience that this specific batch of students have experienced.

After just one full year of normalcy, the everyday lives of the then third-trimester sophomores and students all around the world were disrupted dramatically.

The two and a half years that followed were full of countless canceled traditions, on and off mask mandates and various situations that demanded patience and flexibility from everybody in the Homestead community.

“How do you navigate when you’re blindfolded in a pitch-black room and given a broken compass? You can’t navigate. you just have to walk forward and hope you don’t run into something—And that’s what I did, that’s what all of us really did,” Hannah Kendzor, senior, said. “We just kept taking it second by second, hour by hour, day by day and now we’ve somehow ended up here, in the last trimester of our senior year”

Amidst all of these whiplash-inducing changes, the class found joy in the moments that they got to share with each other.

“Having my friends on zoom and via text was so helpful throughout COIVD-19, and now we get to really have fun and enjoy these final moments together,” Matthews said.

As the golden rays of the sun peeked through the trees that surround 5000 West Mequon Road the class buzzed amongst themselves with breakfast treats from different local spots in tow, internally reflecting upon the bittersweet moments that they had shared together and all of those that have yet to come.

“The event was 20 minutes of fun that let me share a great experience with my friends, and that’s what it’s all about,” Zach Miller, senior, said.