Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 2, 1994 TAG: 9406020147
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: N-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: WENDI GIBSON RICHERT STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Consider friendship: The six seniors we talked with agreed that most of the 77 seniors are eager to cash in their bout of senioritis for a diploma, but they are fearful of losing the friendships kindled by at least four years of learning and growing together.
"Its scary," says Ginny Boggs, who will attend Roanoke College to study business administration. "Have you thought about that?" she asks her peers assembled around the conference table in the guidance office. "Were not going to see any of these people."
"It is hard to believe," answers Kara Mundy, a volleyball, basketball and softball player who will study biology at Radford University before applying to medical schools. "The friends you make in college," she says she has heard, "are the ones who'll be your best friends."
That doesn't seem possible, she says, because she has grown up here. It's the companionship she'll miss the most when she leaves.
Now consider loyalty: "I love this school," Teresa Hickman says. And while she's ready to head for bigger cities - she'll attend Christopher Newport College in Newport News - she appreciates this small school that, for her, stressed learning in a caring way.
Scott Whiting, who will forfeit his chance to hike the Appalachian Trail this fall to take Roanoke College up on its "good deal" offer, agrees. "When I look back at all the teachers I've had, each one of them has gone out of their way to do something for me. They take the burden on themselves for their students."
Possibly no one appreciates that like Michelle Parker, who never questioned staying in school after giving birth to her son, Michael Hall, more than a year ago. Sometimes, when baby-sitting plans fell through, she brought Michael to school, where teachers gladly watched him in the office.
It's the support Parker will miss when she goes on to Roanoke College to study medical technology. "You get a lot of support here."
Now, scholarship: If this class remembers only one thing in 50 years, it will be this: "The only reason you need oxygen," Mundy begins, is because - the rest of the group joins in - "it's the last hydrogen acceptor in cellular respiration."
And, says Mandi Fultz, who wants to become a legal assistant after she finishes her studies at National Business College, they probably will recall the songs they sang in English class when they read the Greek drama "Oedipus Rex."
"If you heard us singing," Parker laughs, "you'd remember."
Lastly, consider sportsmanship: "I thought we were a pretty good class," Mundy says. All agree. Fights are minimal, Whiting says. Guns are practically unheard of. And racial tensions don't surface often, either.
In fact, because the school is so easy-going, "I think people are going to have a culture shock when they get to the real world," Whiting says. "But I think we are privileged to have gone here."
In fact, most of this group believes that many in the class of '94 - whether going away to college, getting married and starting their own families, or commuting to jobs around the Roanoke Valley - will wind up settling right here, or in a small town that reminds them of their youth on the James River.
They'll come back, these seniors contend, because of the memories.
by CNB