U-Hi Titans of 2002 in starting blocks of life

"You are all individual parts of the last class of the old University High School."

Throughout high school, this has seemed to be the phrase that has rung most true for the class of 2002.

It's hard to believe for many of us that we started this great journey soon to be ending from different schools than the one we have attended for three years now, the majority of our class being alumni from either Bowdish or Horizon, two rival junior high schools.

With a handicap to the normal high school experience due to the seventh- through ninth-grade junior highs in our school district, our high school career did not start until our sophomore year.

It was this sophomore year that we started out breaking down the barriers of our former school allegiances and coming together as one U-Hi class.

This task was not as hard as it sounds though, as we were provided with what seemed like many natural enemies that mutually helped to persecute us into one entity: the seniors, the teachers and our aging school.

It was through the various trials of sophomore year that we were forced to adjust to that we started to come together. We experienced the rigors of a four-period day, the acquisition of a means to legally drive a car, and the realization that because a new school was being planned, anything that broke would be ripped out of the wall and have a metal plate welded into its place.

Junior year was not much different, only this time the realization that we weren't the lowest on the totem pole; a new class had arrived that made us feel older, wiser and more in control of our own destiny.

We also began to experience personal triumphs of our own, some of us were becoming our high school's premiere, from band, to debate and onto the football team; we were making the varsity teams and began to take a small part of the spotlight.

It is not the opening years of our high school career that we will take with us into our future, but the culmination of them in this last year and its own experiences.

The track into the spotlight has continued with our own various athletes and DECA business members venturing and competing at regional and state and even national levels, math team and Knowledge Bowl holding their own among stiff competition, and the music and drama programs successfully touring a variety of venues and putting on a multitude of popular productions; all for the single goal of representing ourselves, our class and our school.

The last major part of our senior year has been making lasting memories and the ultimate pieces of insight that embody the final step toward our adulthood.

This last year began filled with testing and a mass of applications that put our past to trial as we attempt to journey to those greater academic institutions we dream of every night.

It hasn't been until these past few months that we have had the chance to look back and contemplate the greater things.

We realize that the end of every day is a miniature Bloomsday where as one, we all struggle to leave the school grounds in a mad dash.

The years we have spent here at 10212 E. Ninth have helped prepare us for something greater, that in working as one toward common goals we are preparing ourselves for a later life where as one unit, one class, one community, we will all run together in the race that is called life.

This sidebar appeared with the story:

CELEBRATE

Closing ceremony

Celebrate University High School at the closing ceremony tomorrow at 7 p.m.

The event will include speeches and live music. Community members can take one last look at the building as a running high school Saturday. Tours run from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Copyright 2002 Cowles Publishing Company
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.