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The class of 2022 on the state of the pandemic

Few Expected Masks To Be Needed This Fall
Posted at 8:58 PM, Aug 13, 2021
and last updated 2021-08-14 12:38:41-04

OPELOUSAS & GRAND COTEAU, La. — When our local high schoolers finished their junior years, they thought the pandemic would be long gone when August rolled around.

Well, now they're seniors, the pandemic's still here, how do they feel about the new, new normal.

"I think at first, when the pandemic started, we'd only have two weeks of lockdown, and it ended up being for the rest of the year, six or eight weeks," recalls Emile Aucoin, a senior at St. John Berchmans. "So, yeh, I thought it would be gone but it is what it is."

Jaren St. Clair of Opelousas Catholic agrees. "We ended our junior year, we got an email saying as of now we don't have to wear any masks. We were all so hopeful that we would come here without masks, we would return to life as normal."

However, that wasn't .... that isn't the case. Masks are once-again standard issue for our high schoolers, and many, like Sacred Heart's Lillian Cain, are pretty much taking the safety measures in stride.

"We're following all of the Department of Health rules and we follow those rules, we have to wear our masks, which is kind of inconvenient but is a small price to pay to be able to do all the stuff we can," says Lillian Cain of The Academy of the Sacred Heart.

'All the stuff we can' will hopefully include that which makes for a senior year in high school. Ella Eads of Opelousas Catholic tells us any health requirement is a small price to pay for the memories that she hopes to create between now and May. "Because if I have to wear a mask to be able to have my homecoming, be able to have a prom, football season, all the other sports, I'll do whatever it takes to have all that my senior year."

"You know, put on your mask, make sure anyone is sanitizing and stuff like that," offers St. Clair. "We come here and we uplift each other, and we make sure we all make through this together."

Of course, the high school seniors are being smart. You'll wear your mask; you'll still maintain your distance; you're not feeling well, you'll stay home, and you'll do the smart things. Our high school seniors are ready for their senior years, and apparently they are not letting a pandemic keep them down.

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