Dripping Springs High School is about to become “old stomping grounds,” for a lot of us. I can guarantee these past four years were not easy for any of us (students, teachers, and parents alike). On behalf of the class of 2021, The Class of COVID, let’s get to unpack these past four years together.

Despite the ups and downs that we all experienced throughout high school, it is hard to not feel nostalgic while looking back at a time before Tik Tok. With the rise of social media at an all-time high when we first stepped into high school, the trends were shifting at a very fast pace. 

From what I recall from freshman year it was all about Snapchat. Snap Maps had just been released and everyone was stalking each other. Arguably, it was the creepiest trend of the year…

Then, freshman year blended into sophomore year and Dripping Springs got its very own Starbucks at the same time that we were all getting our driver’s licenses. This made for a very broke and very caffeinated sophomore year, but at least we were getting all our work done. Without Starbucks I’m not sure if any of us would have survived the AP English unit over East of Eden.

Before we knew it we were juniors. May we always remember the parking crisis of 2019, when we had to be at school an hour early to get a somewhat decent parking spot. It wasn’t all bad though, at least we were all hitting our daily step goal walking to and from our cars. Coinciding the parking crisis was the rise of Tik Tok. Thinking back on it, the number of people filming Tik Toks as I was trying to walk to class bothered me, but now I know that app was one of the only things entertaining us during the first COVID lockdown. We will always remember leaving for Spring Break and not coming back the second half of our junior year. 

Now, we are seniors. It happened faster than we thought it would and I bet most of our lives look a lot different than they did four years ago. Some of us went back to in-person school and some of us chose to stay remote, but somehow the majority of us managed to make the most of this crazy year. Now, we are thinking about Graduation. It’s like the finish line at the end of a twelve-year race and we are all about to cross it together. Nobody can deny that our high school careers looked a little different than most, but we got through the hard times with the help of amazing teachers, parents, and friends. On behalf of the seniors, goodbye Dripping Springs High School and thank you for all we have learned inside and outside of the classroom.

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By Sam Moore, Co Editor-in-Chief

Feature photo by Riordan Tiller