Seniors have special, exclusive privileges. Wearing senior shirts everyday of the week, early release, late arrival, off-campus lunch and the most coveted one: buying and painting something that is of value on a senior parking spot. Seniors look forward to this day for years and when the day finally comes, it gets a little intense.

It might seem crazy to some, but camping out all night in front of the school the night before the “war,” was the only option to get the first choice on the spot YOU want.

“The people who camped out the night before were Allie Satterwhite, Reilly Clark, Lauren Wentz, Jessica Havard, Brittany Blythe, Brooklynn Boycott, Parker Herzog, Paden Scott and me,” senior Emma Chambers said. “It was Paden’s idea, and at first he said it as a joke but everyone took him seriously and loved the idea!”  

A long night with close friends calls for a good time to kick off senior year.

“I have a lot of good memories from that night. We sang, played heads up, took a lap around the school, ate a lot of food, and got donuts in the morning (thanks to Allie’s dad) and ran up to Race Trac multiple times. Then in the morning we set up our lawn chairs and sat in a circle by the front doors so we could make sure we were first in line,” senior Emma Chambers said.

Besides the group who spent the night, people started lining up in front of the school the next morning before the sun even came up. During the hours that people sat in the line, parents came by with snacks and breakfast treats

“I got to the school around 6 a.m. and so it was kind of frustrating just having to sit there until 9 a.m. with nothing to do, but overall I was excited to finally have a spot and be able to paint it and call it mine,” senior Maddy Donaldson said. “Parker Herzog walked around after a while trying to sell donuts for a dollar. I don’t think anyone bought them,” Donaldson laughed .

Seniors painted something on their spot that had a special story behind it or was important to them.

“My spot is significant to me because in today’s society black women are overlooked. I used the quote ‘Black Girl Magic’ because it’s a saying of empowerment plus the Bible verse goes along with it because it talks about ‘being fearfully and wonderfully made’ by God. It took me two days to paint but I had a good time since I got to spend time with my sister and cousin before she went to college,” senior Shonna Smith said.

Donaldson painted a quote on her spot as a daily reminder for herself.

“I put ‘do everything in love’ to remind me to have a good mindset every day, and I painted it with spray paint because to me I thought I had more freedom with it than regular paint,” said Donaldson. “My favorite memory from the painting process was staying until 12 a.m. just talking with everyone else painting their spots, and really enjoying ourselves just painting.”

Why just paint one spot when you could paint two and park right next to your cousin?

“We did a combined spot because we thought it would look cool and wanted ours to be different from everyone else’s,” senior Britney Jones said.

“We knew we wanted some type of flower with a verse so we looked up flowers on Pinterest and found one like the one we did and our grandma found us a cute simple verse,” senior Cheyenne Allen said. “It took us literally the whole window they gave us to paint it. We started the first day they let us start painting and finished on that last Sunday, but my favorite memory is the last day because it was finally finished and it was such a huge accomplishment,” Allen said.