Local high school seniors grapple with cancellation of graduation

It should be the best time of their high school lives, but instead their senior year abruptly ended because of coronavirus.

“Obviously, we’re all pretty sad considering that we’re the only senior class who is not going to have a graduation, not going to have a prom,” said Carter Anderholt, Palm Desert High School senior and leader of the Aztec Army student section.

“It’s heartbreaking because, I worked so hard and I kind of just want to show it, I did it,” said La Quinta High School senior Jessenia Perez.

“You do all this to make your family proud, your parents, your friends, yourself, and I feel like a lot of us seniors never got the opportunity to simply just walk on a stage and say, ‘we did it.’ It’s not going to happen for my class,” said Shadow Hills High School senior Luciana Lopez-Cantu.

Lopez-Cantu will be the first in her family to graduate high school in the United States.

“I think what hurts more is that it was going to be a moment where I connect with my parents and say thank you guys specifically," she said. "I told them thank you in person, but it was a moment where I wanted to tell everyone that it was because of them.”

 Desert Mirage counselor and senior parent Michele Perez says it’s important to put it all into perspective.

“I just want to hug my mom and dad, I just want to be able to hug our grandparents, and we can’t do that," she said. "When you look at that perspective that we can’t even go hug our family members, versus a graduation, it just doesn’t seem to add up.”

Despite the circumstances, these seniors have met the challenge with gratitude.

“Really this senior year has been incredible, just Aztec Army has made it that way," said Aztec Army leader and Palm Desert High School senior Bannon Clark. "We’re five best friends and some of us have grown up together pretty much since we were 10 to pretty much now.”

“It’s just made me into the person I am today, being well-minded and creative as I can be with all this,” said Anderholt.

“This is just going to make us stronger and I always say everything happens for a reason,” Jessenia Perez said.

“We can get past this, all of us," Clark said. "Everyone in the Coachella Valley can get past this.”

“There’s going to be some good out of it," Michele Perez said. "She’s [Jessenia] going to have a purpose out of this. A lot of our seniors are so resilient, so understanding and I think at the end they’re all going to be great people in their future.”