Creston High School class of ’21 cap off an unforgettable year

Creston High School’s graduation ceremony is sunday May 23 at 2 p.m. and this year’s graduates experienced an unprecedented transition from their junior into senior year. The risk of receiving and spreading COVID-19 has been a part of everyone’s lives, but these seniors, much of whom had extra-curricular activities, had to adapt in uncertain times.

Korbyn Ringer, a graduate going onto Simpson College to study music performance and education and Arion Award recipient said one of the biggest hurdles was adapting to the CDC guidelines.

“What they told you at the beginning of the year was, ‘You don’t have to wear a mask if you’re six feet apart,’ and you had a little bit of leeway and they kind of tightened up the rules around November.”

The beginning of the pandemic opened up a cautious optimism, but the crisis quickly escalated, which no one was prepared for.

“It was a lot of adjusting, it was trying to figure out what the next day was going to be like because once spring break hit at the end of our junior year, we went on lockdown, and we were just sitting there thinking, ‘Oh two weeks isn’t so bad,’ and then it turned out to be the end of the month and it was all summer long.”

Ringer said the pandemic shed doubt on the school’s production of “High School Musical” before winter break.

“It wasn’t so bad when it first started, but once it got to November, a lot of cases happened around the musical that we were trying to figure out, ‘Well is it going to get cancelled?’” he said. “Just a lot of things that we were scared and worried about.”

Ringer added the CDC guidelines of staying six feet apart and wearing a mask added enormous difficulty to the production of the play.

“It was a lot of adjusting and really being dependent on yourself and being more dependent on the ensemble because you don’t know what they’re going to sound like when you have to try to be so far away,” he said. “It makes being a musician a lot harder in that scenario.”

However, Ringer didn’t see his academic work slip during the abrupt transition as he was mostly taking in-person classes and found online resources richer with educational resources.

Marie Mullin is graduating with honors, including being a member of the Hawkeye 10 all-academic team and nominee for the Des Moines Register all-academic team. Mullin said she is going to Luther College to study Biology with a minor in Music. Mullin also said there was a big adjustment in her last two years of high school.

“We just got, kind of, cut off at spring break, and we thought, ‘oh it’ll be a week and then it’ll be fine, maybe two weeks at most,’ and then we had an extended summer break,” Mullin said. “So I took the opportunity over the extended summer break to take a college class through DMACC.”

Mullin said she took ornithology (the study of birds,) intro to psychology, among others. Mullin used this to keep her motivated during a stressful period.

“I just thought about working towards college, it’s really what I’ve been doing my whole high school career because that’s what’s been really motivating me through the summer, so I can save up for college, ‘cause I was really looking forward to it,” she said.

Mullin also said that complying with CDC guidelines made it difficult for her.

“Because I’m in band and choir, I’m involved in those, and I’m also involved in the speech team, and so we had to take extra precautions with those, so during band we had to put felt covers on all of the instruments and for choir we had to rehearse in the auditorium instead of the choir room,” she said.

Mullin added band practice was also conducted in the same fashion as choir so that everyone had enough space between them in an attempt to slow the spread of COVID-19. Mullin said that everyone was conscious of the health risks and made the requisite effort.

“It was definitely different from anything anyone had ever experienced, but all the teachers, Mrs. Warner, the choir teacher, Mr. Peters, the band teacher, really made sure that we were all mulling proper precautions,” she said.

Jurnee Harvey, who will be on the SWCC dance team next year and considering transferring to Grand View to study art and business and John Phillip Sousa Award recipient, was a COVID-19 patient herself.

“I got COVID in the winter and that made it so I couldn’t go to state dance competitions,” she said. “And it was super hard at first just because my mom worked in healthcare.”

Harvey added she experienced a fever, headache and no sense of smell.

Harvey, however, said that life at the school was not remarkably different under the pandemic for her.

“To be honest, it wasn’t a lot different, a lot of the stuff’s the same, just like, masks,” Harvey said. “It was disappointing that we couldn’t go on trips and stuff, but other than that, life at the actual school was fine.”