Senior year is the most unique of all high school years. While seniors are technically still adolescents, they are in the midst of preparing for adulthood and college life.

With college applications dominating most of seniors’ time, each graduating class still has to find a way to enjoy their final year of high school. As a result, annual traditions run wild throughout seniors’ last year of high school.

Shed Painting

Sparking the excitement with senior year, the shed painting illuminates the real start to the end of senior high school careers. Seniors gather over the summer for a senior picnic, and during this, they get the opportunity to paint their name on the senior shed. This tradition has been at WJ for years, and the seniors this year had been looking forward to making their mark on the shed since freshman year.

Senior Sleepover and Senior Sunrise

One night before school begins, the senior sleepover takes place, where several students usually gather at a person’s house in the evening to enjoy each other’s company and recount their most memorable moments in high school. The point is to spend the night with friends and wake up to participate in the Senior Sunrise, the following morning on the last first day of high school.

“My favorite part about the sleepover was seeing my friends after a long summer away from them. It was hard for me to see them because of my summer camp and internship,” senior Gigi Relacion said.

With seniors waking up as early as 5:30 a.m. the next day, committing to the sunrise event is difficult, but most surely worth it.

“It was definitely rough waking up for the sunrise after the sleepover, but it was nice to see the sunrise with my friends after I only got four hours of sleep,” Relacion said.

Running the Student Section

As the year begins, fall sports take full swing with football, soccer, field hockey and track. One of the key elements of fall sports is the student section. As a senior, the student section becomes more involved and spirited. Football games typically draw the most crowds because of the excitement and competitiveness around the football environment.

Senior Bardia Hormozi is an active leader in the student section at most sporting events. He emphasizes the need to be loud and have fun as a vital part of maintaining the school spirit at games.

“It’s important to get everyone involved and make sure that you don’t disrespect the guidelines the administrators set,” Hormozi said.

Senior Assassin

Whether it’s getting surprised outside your house or going on a full speed car chase, the game senior assassin took WJ seniors by storm. Senior Assassin started with 32 teams, each made up of 5 seniors, the goal being to get your opposing team (as long as it isn’t at school) and get a video of shooting them with a water gun. The first team to get all their targets out or who has more targets out by the end of the week wins the round, and by the end, one team will be left.

Senior Sean Blakeslee had a great time playing, and felt that it is an essential tradition for WJ seniors to partake in.

“I loved senior assassin and thought it just made everything more interesting. It also gave us the opportunity to learn more about people in our grade we knew less, and overall it was just super fun having the exhilaration of not wanting to get caught and wanting your team to win,” Blakeslee said.