Seniors embrace traditions

The class of 2025 carried on the 15-year campus tradition of painting the “senior rock” by covering the rock in blue and green handprints the day before the official start of their senior year. Seniors have also been able to participate in many traditions like senior dinner, senior sunrise, painting senior jeans, and senior breakfast which included welcoming students in each building through “tunnels of love”. Since 2010, painting the senior rock is one of the schools most unique traditions. “The painting of the rock is really a way for the senior class to kick off their senior year as the campus leaders,” Stefan Jones, former teacher and senior class sponsor said. “It is a way for them to officially put their physical stamp of leadership on the campus.” The rock was strategically placed between the senior parking lot and the south entrance of the high school to remind seniors of their role on campus each day, said Mrs. Jones. In the inaugural year of this tradition, seniors decorated and signed the rock, with permanent markers which eventually wore off, Mrs. Jones said. She also added that seniors aimed for the rock to look differently than it had the year before, which involved changing the colors and decorations, and adding their signatures, handprints, and footprints. Due to the 2020 pandemic, the class of 2020 missed out on many of the final senior traditions. As a way to honor them, Mrs. Jones said, their painted rock, which was unearthed when the high school building was built in 2009, was preserved and relocated near the baseball field. The new senior rock was found when excavating for the construction of Warrior Arena.