This is a weekly series highlighting some of Chatham’s graduating seniors in the wake of cancellations of ceremonies and traditions due to COVID-19. Do you want to tell us about your senior? Reach out to us!
Jalen McAfee Marion
PITTSBORO — Jalen McAfee Marion, a graduating senior from Northwood High School in Pittsboro, didn’t get a signing day this year, a tradition for many graduating senior athletes to celebrate the award of sport scholarships for college.
But he’s just happy he is going to be able to play basketball in college. Even so, he’s worried that his first season of college ball may be canceled, which he hopes won’t affect his scholarship to attend Cape Fear Community College.
“It may have more long-term effects,” Marion said. “That may end up messing up my entire life.”
Marion has been keeping up with his studies as classes moved online. He said that he wasn’t sure how they were grading so he thought it was “better to be safe than sorry.”
“I didn’t want to not work then end up failing,” Marion said. “It’s really odd because we just didn’t know and I still don’t know how they’re grading. I just know I passed.
“I’m not gonna lie,” he said. “I miss school. I’d rather be in class. I didn’t realize how much I miss being in school. I miss seeing all my friends’ faces.”
For Marion, spring was a bit of a down time for him, one where instead of playing sports, he supported his friends who played spring sports. He especially missing baseball season and each of his friends who play because each year he would go out and support them.
“It ruined a lot,” Marion said. “Can’t play pickup with my friends or play basketball at the court. I can’t hang out with friends. It sucks. It makes you realize how much you miss your friends.”
Marion has accepted the fact that he can’t go out. He realizes that it’s a “hazard to yourself and those around you.” Even though he accepts the reality of the situation, it was entirely unexpected and now he’s grappling with his own feelings about it.
“I worked for years,” Marion said. “Senior year is the last time you get to see your friends before everyone goes to college and gets all split up. It’s shocking because I always thought we would graduate and do it normally. It’s weird not being able to share with friends and family in that big dome. It was going to just be so loud.
“That opportunity was taken away from us,” Marion continued. “We’re not being able to walk across a stage. We’re not being able to spend that time with your friends and family. It’s just not going to happen. It’s really not fair. It makes me more upset when people say it’s not that big a deal, you’re still graduating. But I’m not. It’s not how I pictured it. Nobody wants what they planned for all these years ruined. It’s not anything you can understand because you don’t have to go through it. They don’t know what it’s like. But I’m going to play the cards I’ve been dealt.”
Kaitlyn Beal
PITTSBORO — Kaitlyn Beal has created a 40-minute loop that she drives when she needs to get out of the house, even though she doesn’t “really go anywhere.” Beal, who is a graduating senior at Northwood High School in Pittsboro said that as a “homebody,” having to stay home hasn’t been “that bad.”
“I mean, I interact with my family, but after months of quarantine, you can only talk about so many things without running out of things to talk about,” she said.
Beal has been continuing her classes, mostly online courses at Central Carolina Community College, even though she’s not sure those classes will count toward her grade point average. For her, dealing with the changes to her senior year because of COVID-19 were a shock because she “didn’t realize how fast everything was going to happen.” Within two weeks, “everything was shut down.”
“It was unexpected,” Beal said. “We didn’t realize our last day was the last so I didn’t get to say good-bye to my friends. It kinda sucked.”
What’s missing is the social interaction with her friends. She keeps up with them using FaceTime, but it’s “not the same.”
“You expected to have those extra months before everyone goes off to college,” Beal said. “We’re all going far away from each other.”
“We’ve been going to school for 12 years,” Beal said. “Every other person has had formal celebrations, a prom and graduation. All these years you go to school, you expect this huge thing to happen then it doesn’t happen.
“I know a lot of people trying to help,” she said. “That’s nice and I really appreciate it, but at the end of the day it’s not the same. Everyone else gets that, the celebrations, but we didn’t get that. It really sucks.”
