An Unforgettable Time: Whittington Looks Back on Her Senior Year
West Wilkes senior reflects on the past, looks toward the future
By AMIE KNOWLES
MILLERS CREEK– Emotional, fun and unforgettable. That’s how 2020 West Wilkes High School graduate Sarah Whittington described her senior year.
“It has been an emotional roller coaster. I feel like we started the year off on a high. We thought that 2020 was going to be unforgettable and, like, the best year yet,” Whittington said. “Then whenever we hit New Year’s, it was kind of like a shock.”
But of course, Whittington didn’t start out her high school career in the 12th grade. She didn’t enter high school in the middle of a global pandemic. Four years ago, she laid the foundation for what would become some of the busiest and best times of her teenage experience.
“Whenever I went into high school, I didn’t really plan to get involved in everything,” Whittington said. “It just kind of happened.”
During her freshman year, Whittington attended a career fair at her school where she learned about the institution’s different clubs and organizations. Not quite sure what she wanted to be when she grew up, Whittington signed up for a number of clubs in hopes of finding her passion.
“My sophomore year, I decided I was going to stick with it and continue this,” Whittington said.
Before long, she’d signed up for Beta Club, student council, Health Occupations Students of America (HOSA), Students for Christ, Key Club, Peer Tutor, United Teams in Action (UTA), Time, Talent and Treasure Leading to Change (T3LC), and the National Technical Honor Society (NTHS), in addition to playing volleyball and working as a scorekeeper for the volleyball, basketball and softball teams.
Unlike some high schools in the area, West Wilkes doesn’t offer advanced placement, or AP, courses that could lead a graduate to an associate’s degree in addition to their diploma. Whittington didn’t let that stop her from getting her associate’s degree from Wilkes Community College during her high school career, but it did prompt her to keep up the rigorous afterschool schedule she started in ninth grade.
“I know a lot of colleges look for that,” Whittington said.
Facing Challenges Head On
Whittington’s achievements and drive set her up for prestigious positions as a senior. In 12th grade, she served as both the student body president at West Wilkes and also accepted the role of NC HOSA state vice president.
Everything seemed to be going as planned for the best senior year ever. Until it wasn’t.
In March, COVID-19 shut down schools in North Carolina — and across the country. Without warning, Whittington experienced her last day ever in a high school classroom.
At first, she and her peers thought that school wouldn’t be in session for a couple of weeks, until the pandemic blew over. She didn’t realize that when she said goodbye to her friends and teachers in the middle of the spring semester, it’d be for the last time in a normal West Wilkes setting.
“I think that we all knew that we would be out for a little while, but none of us really realized that that was the end,” Whittington said. “Still now, it feels like we pressed pause in March and any day now we’re going to go back and finish out our senior year. It still feels so surreal that our senior year is over.”
For the first time in four years, Whittington’s schedule went from being at school all day for class and then staying late for extracurricular activities and sports to not leaving her home for four weeks.
“That was a really big change. And then everything was moved online,” Whittington said. “When they said our senior year would go by fast, I didn’t realize it would be, like, boom.”
In addition to her class format and schedule changing, her official duties also transformed.
“I sit on the board as the chair of the membership initiative committee for HOSA as well. With that, we used to meet once a month. We would travel and meet the executive committee at a hotel and have our board meeting,” Whittington said. “After the pandemic hit, it was about a month before our state conference, so we had to call several emergency board meetings online and try to decide what we would do with those funds and how much money we would get back for students. It’s a fairly large organization, so all of that was fairly complicated, especially through Zoom. Actually, I’m still sitting as a chair because of the pandemic. Usually you serve one term and then you can go out, but it’s a little more complicated now.”
Her responsibilities as student body president also shifted.
“I decided once we were out early and we figured out for sure that we weren’t going back to school, that I was going to make a video for all of our seniors,” Whittington said.
A massive undertaking, the student body president emailed all of the seniors at her high school and asked that they submit a photograph of themselves for her video project.
“And then as a surprise, I got the teachers to submit their videos to the seniors and their goodbyes,” Whittington said. “I combined it into one video and then on what would have been our graduation day, I released it for all of the seniors and teachers and parents to see.”
The uncharacteristic and sudden end to the class of 2020’s senior year easily could’ve ripped people apart, but the opposite happened at West Wilkes.
“At first, I was really upset and I think most of the seniors can speak to this. We felt cheated out of the rest of our senior year,” Whittington said. “But now, we make our own memories. Like the other day, we had a small little prom. We wore our prom dresses. We’ve had an outpouring of support from all of our community members. It’s kind of like we put our own little twist on our senior year and made it ours. It’s been amazing how our community’s come together to help us out and just our school, even, how they made us feel like we were important, even though we’re not at school.”
With graduation postponed, Wittington said she’s thankful to the “amazing staff, support group and students” that made up West Wilkes.
“I feel like this pandemic and everything else that’s happened in 2020, yes, it’s unforgettable, but I really feel like the class of 2020 is prepared for anything,” Whittington said. “I really feel like we can accomplish anything we set our minds to now.”
Planning to head to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the fall to study biomedical engineering as it relates to autoimmune diseases, Whittington looks forward to her future — but it’s a sure thing she’ll never forget this part of her past.
“I can’t wait to tell future generations how our graduating year went,” Whittington said.
Want to read more of Sarah’s story or others like hers? NWNC’s 2020 Wilkes County Graduation Yearbook is out now. It’s 72 pages of full color material, all dedicated to the Class of 2020. You can order a copy by emailing martha@nwncmagazine.com.
