Dear Bingham High School, 

I don’t really know how to start this but here we go, I can’t believe our 3 years together are coming to an end. It feels like it was just yesterday that I entered your hallowed halls for the first time as a scared 10th grader that felt so small compared to everyone else, but look at me now, 18 years old, graduating, and moving onto bigger and better things—at least I hope so.

We have shared some crazy years together. I will always remember the day that I found out that I wasn’t finishing my junior year in person. I was sitting in my living room thinking about the cooking competition that we had just done the Friday before when I got the text message with a link to a news article talking about how the governor had shut down the schools for 2 weeks. Subconsciously I knew it was going to be longer, but I didn’t want to believe it at the time. I had so much to look forward to: I had made it through the ACT and had the fun part of junior year left. 

Then the icing on the covid cake came. We were back in school, only it didn’t look the same. As kids we were always told that masks were not allowed in school, even on Halloween. But all of a sudden they were required. People felt more distant. We were not allowed to have a normal senior year, but I wouldn’t change it for the world because it created a story that I will never forget.  

With all this talk about leaving and moving on I began reminiscing about the experiences I had, but, more importantly, the people I met that helped shape me into the person I am today. I would like to thank all of my teachers for helping me learn and grow. Specifically thank you Mrs. Vanden Brink for putting up with me all 3 years and never letting me forget that I can do anything I put my mind to. I would also like to thank my language arts teacher Mr. Orlowski for introducing me to a whole new realm of literature and the effect that someone’s writing can have on the world. 

I would like to thank everyone at the daycare. The kids remind me to stay young and not worry about the future but instead to live in the present a little more. Thank you to my coworkers for listening to all of my crazy stories and being friends to me through it all. 

Thank you, Bingham, for all the memories we shared. I will cherish these for longer than you will know.  People always told me that high school would help me blossom into the person I will become. I never thought much of it, but the more I wrote in this letter the more I realized that is true. 

-Ella