Old North News

The teens and young adults who had to spend part of their high school careers at home during the COVID-19 pandemic will lack memories of some basic activities everyone used to take for granted — prom, homecoming and graduation, just to name a few.

Where they were in their schooling when the pandemic hit affected the amount they missed out on. But other challenges cropped up as well.

"After those first couple of weeks, my grades started to slip because I overslept,” David Makupson, a senior at Trinity High School, told Amber Lake of WFMY News 2. 

This year’s senior class experienced the full gamut, from normal attendance to virtual learning to mask mandates when classes resumed. It will take time to find out how much their learning suffered.

“I'm a person who likes to learn in-person, and be hands-on with things,” Makupson said. “So virtual learning, made things a lot more difficult.”

The Class of 2020 students were robbed of the nostalgia to look back on as their high school years came to a close.

“Makes me feel very sad because I see seniors right now getting ready for prom,” Brianna Poteat, who graduated from Graham High School in 2020, told WFMY. “And I'm like, I wasn't able to do that. ... It really ruined everything like graduation wasn't normal. No prom. Honestly, the last time I saw my classmates, we all had masks on. And we were all six feet apart in the line driving through to graduate and get our diplomas. So yeah, it makes me feel really, really sad that things ended, had to end that way.”

2021 grads were caught in the middle, slogging through as schools tried to reintroduce in-person sessions. Ledford High School 2021 graduate Gwyneth Hill recalled how she couldn’t mingle with her friends because of schedule conflicts.

"It was a little bit different, too, we had to wear masks, and I wasn't able to be on the same days as my friends,” she told WFMY. “So they were on B days, and I was on A days because of our last name.”

On the upside, those sample representatives from all three years have had to learn to rely on themselves for their own success, and that’s a valuable lesson.

“It made everybody's lives a little tougher,” Makupson said. “So this is really getting through like the bad stuff, because always the light at the end of the tunnel."

Hill echoed the sentiment, noting that you just have to find your strength. 

”I got through a pandemic and halfway through my junior year when I was taking my hardest classes," she said. ”You've just got to get the right group around you and just trust God in everything."

WFMY News 2 is inviting every member of the Class of 2022 to collect shoutouts from family and friends by texting their photos to 336-379-5775. The photos you send cannot be professionally made.