Sun Sets On School For Local Seniors
• The Peninsula High School senior class continues the tradition of Senior Sunset.
In celebrating the winding down of their senior year, Palos Verdes Peninsula High School seniors gathered together on the school softball fields to watch the sun set on May 31. Senior Sunset, like Senior Sunrise at the beginning of the school year, is a Peninsula tradition.
Senior Harmont Grenier summarized the event: “It is a great time to reflect with your friends on how far you have come. It feels like just yesterday that we were at Senior Sunrise.”
Prior in the school day, schoolwide yearend events took place. At lunch, various teachers, staff, and classmates gathered around the pool area to watch the Physics students paddle and race across the pool in their cardboard constructed boats. And yearbooks were distributed throughout the morning.
Many seniors brought these books and their Sharpies to the senior gathering at night and wrote messages to friends they would soon be leaving.
While many students are staying fairly local for the next several years, many others will be experiencing some major weather changes as they move farther east for college.
For seniors like Isabel Frandsen, Senior Sunset was when individuals realized that they are almost done with high school. “I am really going to miss these people,” Frandsen said. “They are like family.”
As yearbooks and thoughtful words were exchanged, everyone ate dinner provided by Peninsula ASB from L&L Hawaiian Barbeque. The food available included chicken katsu, beef, rice, and macaroni salad. Some seniors ate on the grass with friends, while others sat at tables that were filled with printed photographs of students at various school events, from Homecoming to football games to Prom.
The photos served as a reminder that although many school events were in the past, events such as Baccalaureate and Graduation were only days away.
The pictures were tapped to the table so the wind would not blow them away, but students were encouraged to untape them and take them home as mementos.
“Senior year felt like it went by so quickly,” Roopsha Chatterjee said. “But seeing the photos on the table summed up the year for me and helped me reflect on some of my favorite memories.”
Senior Sunset began at six o’clock even though the sun did not actually set until around eight. This left students with plenty of time to eat, talk with friends, and play games. Basketball games took place on one side of the fields while spike ball and football, among other activities, were being played on the other side.
Clara Deley, a senior, also at the event, said, “I had a great time during the Senior Sunset because I was able to chill with my friends and also run around tossing a football.”
Students took advantage of the “golden hour” lighting and posed for many photos with one another.
Senior Tommy Jankowski regarded Thursday night as “one of my favorite times of the year, where my friends and I were able to hang out, play spike ball, eat tasty food, and spend time together for one of the last times.”
The sky filled with yellows and oranges as students wrapped in their blankets and thought about how one week from then, they would be walking across a stage to receive their high school diploma.
