Senior year was full of big events, all of them being big parts of how we spent our last year of high school.

Let’s start with Homecoming. The start of the football season, spirit week, and that big dance to end it all off. This year’s theme for Homecoming week was a color splash. Everyone wore the brightest colors they could to show their school spirit the whole week. They showed their support at the Football game on Friday and then marched in the parade Saturday morning and ended with the big dance Saturday night.

The boys’ soccer team journey to nationals. Morton students filled over 60 fan buses to go to Hoffman Estates High School. After the school provided us with free T-shirts to show our support, District 201 set up police blockades down Harlem Avenue and the I-290 as routes for the fan buses to Hoffman Estates. After arriving at Hoffman Estates, we rallied outside the gates and began some Morton chants to show support. After winning game 1 of the championships, the boys’ soccer team placed 2nd in Nationals.

The annual Snowball Retreat. Snowball is a school club that accepts everyone and provides team building activities and games after school every Thursday. Every year in the first week of February they have their annual retreat to a field campus in Northern Illinois where 100 students can continue with more team building activities and find acceptance in the club. One of my best experiences of my senior year and by far my favorite.

Morton College field trip. Every year the College and Career Center takes a certain number of seniors to visit the local community college. When they get to the college they are started off with a presentation on admissions and how to choose your schedule. They then have student tour guides take the students on a guided tour of the campus and some of its workshops. They were quizzed on what they had seen and heard to make sure it’s in their memory and then were provided with free Paisans pizza and free bags of school spirit wear.

The way the senior year ended, on a computer. Remote Learning. No one expected for school to be on their computer in March until a Global Pandemic canceled school for the rest of the year. As a precaution Morton District 201 and the Governor of Illinois decided to continue the school year online. For seniors this means no senior activities, no prom, and no graduation. Although this is not the way they expected their last year of high school to end, they understand it’s for the health and safety of everyone and there is hope for graduation to be postponed for a later date.