With the end of the school year coming a little too close for comfort, how does East go about celebrating the seniors? The Senior Send Off, held on the seniors’ last day is a way to make them feel appreciated and say goodbye to people who may not be there on graduation day. It’s a laid back day full of excitement and love, originally organized by counselor Colleen Pribyl. 

At East Pribyl does a lot more than counseling. She is also the AP coordinator, she’s in charge of Dual Enrollment, Acellus, graduation, honors night, and finally, she helps plan the senior send off. 

“It’s difficult to find the time to plan. It’s also difficult getting donations and fund raising, but it is totally worth it,” Pribyl said.

She described the Senior Send Off as a goodbye party to honor the students who have made it through all their school years and are ready to go off into the “real world.” It’s a day to thank seniors and give them an opportunity to talk to people they might not have gotten to know too well over the past few years. Paige Cloyd, a former graduate, described the send off as way to say her final goodbyes.

“My favorite part was getting to talk to people that I hadn’t had the chance to in a long time. We were all just excited to be together and be almost done with our senior year on our last day, so everyone was having a good time and getting along,” Cloyd said.

Having an opportunity to talk to people and say goodbyes to friends and teachers before heading off to college gives the seniors a sense of closure and fulfillment they might not have gotten over the years. A current senior, Erica Nickisch, describes the send off as a breath of fresh air.

“It reminds me of what I’ve been working towards since the beginning of freshman year. For me, this day will be a relief to where I can have fun without with my peers one last time, without being stressed about school,” Nickisch said.

Many seniors are excited for the day they are sent off to live their lives the way they’ve always imagined; however, some wish the seniors had more say in what occurred in the send off. They feel it will make it more fun to spend their last day with what they’ve imagined it to be.

“I wish they let the seniors pick what the send off looked like. What I mean by that is to help with setting up the plans and share our ideas for it,  so we could have a choice in our fun day,” Nickisch said. 

To Nickisch, having a choice in the send off would make it more personal and allow seniors to live their last day of high school as perfect as they could get it. Pribyl, however, thinks of the send off a little differently. It’s a time to honor the seniors, but also, it’s a gift and gifts aren’t always supposed to be known to the receiver.

“The senior officers do help. Right now, I’d like to keep it with staff as we like to surprise the seniors,” Pribyl said.

With help from only a few seniors, she is able to surprise the rest and give them the gift of closure and love to honor their last day at East. With the Senior Send Off at East being new just last year, former senior Cloyd believes it was done well and she still had a blast.

“Overall, I thought it was a great experience for me as a senior to get that closure with everyone and just have a fun last day. There were a lot of activities for us to do and I wasn’t really bored at all during that time,” Cloyd said.