Seniors often remember senior year for studiously working on college applications, essays, and working on last minute requirements for graduation. However, on September 7, seniors got to relax together in the commons to grill hot dogs and play fun games to celebrate what they’ve accomplished.

The senior tailgate has been a tradition at Battle for two years. Every year students have come for different reasons including good food, fun games, and more. However, for the class of 2019, students gathered with their peers for some of the last times and reminisced, each student remembering football season for different reasons.

“Football season makes me feel like a child again,” senior Anica Contreras said. “I love just getting to scream overly loud with all my friends and we don’t look crazy at all because everyone else is doing it.”

Senior Trevor Dubinski remembers football season for a different reason. “I had my first kiss at a football game.”

“There’s something beautiful about the camaraderie between all of our classmates,” senior Isaiah Deshon said.  “Even if students don’t get along in school or talk, when it’s a Friday night and there’s a football game, it’s all one common goal of rooting on the team and people can put aside their differences for a little bit.”

Over the last four year, the class of 2019 has gotten to see the football team win four back-to-back district titles. Each student mentioned this as one of their highlights of football season.

Isabel Florence-Young, the senior event planning manager, decided in August that she wanted to continue the tradition of the tailgate.

“I ultimately just wanted people to interact with one another in a fun way because it is some of our last times together as a group.” Florence-Young said.

Once it was approved, Florence-Young started preparing for the event. The class officers promoted the event by hanging posters in the hallways, made a twitter to get the word out, and put information in the announcements. Despite challenges she encountered while planning for the event, she is happy with how the event turned out.

“The hardest part was getting people to want to come to the event,” Florence-Young said. “It’s natural for people to gravitate towards specific groups in high school, but I thought it was important to establish that it was an event for everyone. We wanted everyone here, and I’m happy with the turnout.”

The senior class sponsor, Susie Adams, noted last year there were only six students who came to the tailgate. However, this year there were around 60 students that attended. Adams hopes the tailgate will continue for years.

“Senior year goes really fast and this is their last year together, so any opportunity that you can give students time to gather together to celebrate their year and future, and to share those shared experiences, is really important,” Adams said.

While senior year is remembered for the late nights filling out college applications, part-time schedules, and memorable, the class of 2019 is going into this year with a different mindset.

“We’re just going to have a good together despite knowing we are going to take different paths in a few months. It really just allows us to live in the moment of right now,” Anica Contreras said.

Seniors can find out more information of senior activities coming up by following the senior class twitter @Battleclassof19.