{"id":2457793,"date":"2020-04-28T22:56:00","date_gmt":"2020-04-29T04:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/meredith-c-carroll-celebrating-the-class-of-2020s-2020-vision\/"},"modified":"2020-04-28T22:56:00","modified_gmt":"2020-04-29T04:56:00","slug":"meredith-c-carroll-celebrating-the-class-of-2020s-2020-vision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/meredith-c-carroll-celebrating-the-class-of-2020s-2020-vision\/","title":{"rendered":"Meredith C. Carroll: Celebrating the Class of 2020\u2019s 2020 vision"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image p402_hide\">\n<div class=\"caption-container\"> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"428\" height=\"620\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/02\/meredith-atd-010318-1.jpg\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-post-image\" alt srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/02\/meredith-atd-010318-1.jpg 428w, https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/02\/meredith-atd-010318-1-104x150.jpg 104w, https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/02\/meredith-atd-010318-1-224x325.jpg 224w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 428px) 100vw, 428px\"><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText DropCap\">The coming days and weeks will provide ample time for the Class of 2020 to ruminate on what\u2019s being taken from them, although it\u2019s March 11 to which Aspen High School assistant principal Sarah Strassburger keeps looking back. That was the final date of school before a two-day student break for parent-teacher conferences, which also ended up being when the school district, city, state and the rest of the country shut down indefinitely amid the coronavirus pandemic.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cThe seniors never had a real last day, no face-to-face goodbyes with their teachers and classmates,\u201d Strassburger said. \u201cIt\u2019s been a slow burn of painful information. Not only have they lost all these rites of passage but they won\u2019t be physically together as a group again.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Indeed, not knowing that an unremarkable late-winter Wednesday would be the curtain call to their in-person high school experience has been a perceived sting among students. AHS Head Girl Lauren Fox could have imagined missing her close friends, although what has taken her by surprise is how acutely she\u2019s felt the absence of all her classmates.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cOur school is super tight knit. Most of us have been here since kindergarten and not seeing everyone at lunch and in the halls every day is weird,\u201d Fox said. \u201cBut because of this everyone is staying in touch a lot more. It\u2019s actually really cool how everyone is coming together, including people who weren\u2019t really close before.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"col\" readability=\"6\">\n<div class=\"row at-donation at-donation-mobile p-0\" readability=\"7\">\n<div class=\"col-xl-4 p-2\">\n<div data-bg=\"url(https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/03\/AT-logo-white.png)\" class=\"p-0 mt-2 mb-2 h-75 text-center rocket-lazyload\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/03\/AT-logo-white.png\" class=\"logo m-0 p-0 invisible\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><h3 class=\"d-inline mr-3\">Support Local Journalism<\/h3>\n<p><button class=\"btn d-inline\" type=\"button\" onclick=\"handleDonationButtonClickMidArticle()\">Donate<\/button><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">If there\u2019s been a silver lining to missing out on the senior prank, prom, ditch day, rent-a-senior day, graduation, and Project Graduation, it seems to be an unexpected intimacy, even in the absence of typical physical gatherings. Seniors have found some solace in connecting online via their class Facebook page, and also by skinning up area mountains and at other times, gathering in the empty Aspen Middle School lot with their cars parked in a big circle as everyone sits on their trunks to connect in person, albeit socially distanced.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cIt\u2019s kind of heartbreaking. It hurts a little. It just does not feel good,\u201d AHS\u2019s Owen Cesark said of the vanishing of his senior spring semester. \u201cI watched my older brother graduate a couple of years ago and participate in all the Aspen traditions and I just keep thinking how fun the end of school should have been. We\u2019ve waited four years for these three months.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Senior Molly Miller is similarly dismayed by what\u2019s happening, even if she has a different perspective on the isolation because her dad is a cancer survivor whose immune system requires added safeguarding. Nonetheless, like Cesark, she\u2019s been looking forward to the spring semester of her senior year \u201cfor the past 12 years.\u201d Miller also had an older sister graduate in Aspen before her and got to know \u201cfirsthand what it was supposed to look like.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cI\u2019m most upset about missing graduation, although our Head Boy and Girl have really made an effort for everyone to feel connected and special,\u201d Miller said. \u201cMeeting in the middle school parking lot has been much better than seeing everyone over Zoom. We just have to do what we need to do to protect the people we love.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Plans are underway for an alternative graduation ceremony, notwithstanding Strassburger\u2019s concession that whatever ends up happening likely won\u2019t measure up to walking across the stage at the Benedict Music Tent next month.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cThe hard part is grieving what you wanted,\u201d Strassburger said. \u201cIf you\u2019re trying to replicate something you had your heart set on and go for the lesser version, it\u2019s like buying the knockoff: You\u2019ll know it isn\u2019t the same. I\u2019m just super proud of how the kids have been creative in figuring out how to celebrate each other.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">AHS senior Maxine Mellin remembers the buzz during her freshman year when the gold sheets were hung up in the high school hallway in April and May exalting each senior\u2019s post-graduation intentions. She recently took inspiration from some of her future classmates at Bucknell University, where she plans to attend as a presidential fellow in the fall, and created an account for Aspen High School seniors to laud their apres-Aspen decisions (Instagram.com\/AspenSeniors2020).<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cThe whole class felt bad for ourselves but then took a step back,\u201d Mellin said. \u201cIt was hard to believe what was happening at first. But now that most of us are settled on our next moves and that stress is behind us, we\u2019re on more of a kick to communicate with each other.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cIt keeps hitting me how much is being missed,\u201d she said. \u201cI do believe this experience will end up giving our class a kind of push to do even more once this is all over to make up for what has been lost. For right now, it\u2019s OK to and right to mourn. It\u2019s OK to be conscious of our community\u2019s suffering as well as sad for what\u2019s happening to us.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText Tagline\">More at MeredithCarroll.com and on Twitter @MCCarroll.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/opinion\/meredith-c-carroll-celebrating-the-class-of-2020s-2020-vision\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The coming days and weeks will provide ample time for the Class of 2020 to ruminate on what\u2019s being taken from them, although it\u2019s March 11 to which Aspen High School assistant principal Sarah Strassburger keeps looking back. That was the final date of school before a two-day student break for parent-teacher conferences, which also [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2457793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-17 22:11:50","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley&#039;s Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2457793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2457793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2457793\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2457793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2457793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2457793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}