A Bond Beyond Graduation

In June of this year, the vibrant class of 2018 seniors will graduate and move into their next chapter. This group has certainly left their mark on Cape Henry, as scholars, athletes, musicians, actors, and as unique and valuable individuals. It is not just the Cape Henry community as a whole that this group has inspired, it is the Junior class in particular.

The connection between the Junior and the Senior class is really like no other, and it is evident to most everyone in the community. On a search to discover exactly what it is that so closely binds the two classes together, students were interviewed and asked for their opinion. Marshall Joyce ‘19 best described the classes as “just meshed together. We share laughs and connections and make memories like no other class really does.”

Kendall Hathaway ‘18 claims that the “bond started before some of us even realized it. A lot of it has to do with sports because so many of us have been playing sports together since we were little kids. As we grew as athletes and individuals, we also just all kept growing up next to one another.” The idea of the bond originating from sports teams was a common response from students throughout the interview process. George Selamaj ‘19, having been a part of the Boys Varsity soccer team this year, sharing a field everyday with 12 seniors next to him, expressed how close they were and how hard it will be for him to lose them next season.

These students spend just as much time with each other in the classroom as they do on the athletic fields, on stage, or at music performances. With kids in both grade levels that may have the same interests in a specific class, they are often both enrolled in the class together. Cape Henry does a good job of not having too many classes that cater to just one grade level or one type of individual. Instead, a good number of classes, extracurricular or main courses, are mixed with upperclassmen. It is not unlikely at all for a junior to share almost every class with at least one senior in there with them. Needless to say, with the intertwining of these two classes, both in the classroom and on sports teams and stage, a special connection is easily and strongly formed through all of it.

Junior Tucker Bruner shared how he “feels a connection to the seniors more so than any other class. It is definitely a combination of all of us growing up together and in middle school. Middle school sports were designed where we were always placed on the teams with the grade above. So, from the very beginning, they have been mentors to us, and we have always been pretty good about staying closely tied to them and keeping the friendships alive.” Tucker himself has more friends in the junior class than in the senior class, but he still does have a good number of friends who are seniors. He added, “I just feel like it’s pretty special to be in high school and to be able to drift so easily between grade levels. It’s not something you’d really expect from every high school.”

As Tucker puts it, “When they’re gone next year, there is no doubt going to be a lot of change, but there’s also just a whole new responsibility for us. We will step up and play the role that they do now, and we will help out the rising juniors as they did to us. It’s just what we have to do.”

“But then again… we will never feel that same connection with any other class.”