BRAINERD DISPATCH | May 29, 2020 • PINEANDLAKES ECHO JOURNAL | May 28, 2020
C lASS OF
2020:
Mackenzie — like all high school seniors — misses out on making her last memories
I
t was a bright sunny day in 2008, when an estimated 500 kindergarten students in their colored T-shirts hanging past their knees walked proudly around the track at Adamson Field on Kinderfriend Day at Brainerd High School. Parents and family members sat in the bleachers with their cameras in hand, smiling and waving to their kindergartner. As a mother of a kindergarten JENNIFER graduate, I will never forget KRAUS this day. There was so much Staff Writer excitement and energy in the air. My daughter, Mackenzie Stockinger, in her lavender T-shirt with her fellow Riverside Elementary School classmates — along with students from all Brainerd Public Schools elementary schools — had massive smiles on their faces and were so ecstatic about their day of fun. I remember standing on the field in awe thinking the next time all these students and their families would be together again on
Resilience, dedication, patience, positivity in unprecedented times By Theresa Bourke Staff Writers
the young adults graduating from high school whose senior year was a far cry from the expected. nprecedented times. Instead of the last prom, last sports Uncharted territory. season, last day of school and a Unparalleled circumstances. traditional graduation ceremony, this Similar phrases are used year’s seniors were met with boarded up seemingly in overdrive to describe not businesses around only the 2020 town, closed movie school year but life theaters, canceled in general over the celebrations and past few months. at-home classrooms. For the We never would have expected generations alive They didn’t get it to end this way. We never really that last lap around today, a global wanted it to end this way. pandemic is the bases or the something new JONAH MACEJKOVIC, Brainerd senior track, that last golf — unprecedented, swing, that last uncharted, concert or play, that unparalleled. last fancy outfit for a With a new school dance, that last walk through the experience comes new challenges, new hallways with friends or that last day of a opportunities and new ways of life. A favorite class with a beloved teacher. group that understands that perhaps better than anyone is the class of 2020, RESILIENCE: Page H14
U
SENIORS: Page H14
Brainerd High School senior Mackenzie Stockinger holds up her Kinderfriend Day shirt. Mackenzie has missed her last season of softball and dance and wasn’t able to go to her last 2020 prom due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Jennifer Kraus / Brainerd Dispatch
Aitkin High School. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . H6
Lake Region Christian School. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . H6
Pillager High School. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . H5
Brainerd High School. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . H2
Little Falls Community High School . . . . . . . . . . . . . H3
Pine River-Backus High School. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . H10
Crosby-Ironton High School . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . H6
Pequot Lakes High School. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . H10
Staples-Motley High School. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . H9
Crosslake Online High School. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . H9
Pierz - Healy High School . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . H4
Wadena-Deer Creek High School. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . H9