Every year, Bearden’s Senior Committee is tasked with choosing a quote to serve as the senior quote for that year’s graduating class.
This year, the committee has decided on a quote by English author Neil Gaiman: “Whatever it is you’re scared of doing, do it. Make your mistakes, next year and forever.”
These words will be painted on the cafeteria wall as well as used at the Class of 2024’s graduation ceremony. Mrs. Anne Fine, sponsor of the Senior Committee, thinks the senior quote each year is important because it is representative of the senior class as a whole.
“It is something that the class can use to show what they believe in and how they want to be remembered,” Mrs. Fine said.
This quote is particularly representative of the Class of 2024 because of what they went through having to endure the Covid-19 pandemic.
“This quote is about making mistakes and learning, and I believe that through our hardship (of covid) and mistakes, we have been able to grow as a class into a wonderful and intelligent group of young people,” senior committee member Alisa Apostoaei said.
Added Mrs. Fine: “The Senior Committee, they are the leaders, if you will, of the legacy of the class.”
Senior Committee members, who were first chosen by all of Bearden faculty and then voted on by their peers, are representative of the senior class as a whole and have the responsibility to make decisions for the senior class. When making the decision on what the quote should be, the committee went through more than sixty possible quotes before narrowing them down to a top three and ultimately deciding on one.
The discussion considered a variety of different factors, such as whether it should be serious or funny or how important the speaker of the quote is.
“We wanted to find a quote that really summed up our senior class, but that was hard because we have such a diverse senior class and that kind of showed in our senior committee,” senior committee vice president Elena Arana said.
Now that the committee has agreed on a quote, the final step is to paint it on the cafeteria wall for it to be publicly displayed. The goal of painting it in such a public area is so that people can simply look up and easily read it. Apostoaei, who volunteered to paint it, said she did so to ensure that the quote can be put on the wall soon so that it won’t just be a message for future classes, but for the current Class of 2024.
“Whether you might have messed up on a test or said something you regretted,” Apostoaei said, “this quote can remind you during lunch that it is okay to make mistakes and grow from them.”