SENIOR YEAR A TIME TO LOOK BACK, FORWARD

Class of '99

Special graduation edition

I magine a school so small that everyone must be involved in every activity or there wouldn't be enough people to have the event. This is the setting for St. Michael's Academy. Ten students make up the Class of 1999; four girls and six guys. Five out of the 10 are out-of-state boarders and one is a Korean exchange student. One word describes us - unique! It all started four years ago, when we walked up the stairs into the "big kids territory." It was our freshman year. We learned how to play the game and even some of us are still learning, but we sighed and thought that senior year would never come. Over the past four years, people left and new people came, enabling us to forge new friendships and carry on with the ones that endured. We laughed about everything, we cried when we needed to, we learned whenever possible and we did it together. Now senior year is here and we look back and wonder where did all the time go? From whole-school choir trips to Bozeman, Mont., academic bees and basketball defeats to piano playoffs, pie-eating contests and debate, did we acquire every single piece of knowledge that came our way? Not just academic smarts, although those are important, but life smarts? We had our ups and downs practically every day, but did we learn from them? Asking this question to a class of only 10 people may sound like a fairly simple task but really each of us has had so many different experiences and so our hopes, dreams and goals are as different from each other as Beethoven and Third Eye Blind. However, we do have one common goal and that is to live a life, no matter what we do, that is pleasing to Almighty God and that will draw down his blessing upon us. Our class motto is "Seize the Day!" To take advantage of every opportunity to live and learn. Are we prepared to do it? Yes. Who knows what lies ahead for us in the future? Who knows what we will do, where we will live, who we will marry, or if we will marry? One thing remains for sure: We will always be friends.

Copyright 1999 Cowles Publishing Company
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.