Dreaming of that last dance
A cultural rite of passage, prom was these students’ chance to feel like adults for the first time
A canceled date, another detention, an ill-timed zit: When you’re in high school, any number of problems can make it feel like the end of the world has arrived. Luckily, for those of us who have already graduated, a global pandemic never made the list.
But for students in the class of 2020, the COVID-19 crisis arrived just as they were receiving college acceptance letters, dreaming about new jobs, gearing up to leave high school behind — and making plans for prom, which, for most students, has been canceled.
We photographed students from Omaha, Nebraska, in the outfits they had planned to wear to the dance. They talked to us about their prom dreams, hopes and disappointments.
Sunny Yang, 18, Mercy High School
Prom is a really big deal. Since it’s an all-girls school, we pick one prom queen and two princesses. I ordered my dress before spring break, in February. I was so excited, and I wanted to be prepared so I could plan my makeup and the jewelry, color-coding my outfit.
For me, it’s a day to be a princess. We wear uniforms all the time. We don’t get to wear jeans or any cute tops, so it was a day where I can wear something special and cute. It’s a day to treat myself: spending money, looking gorgeous, looking happy all that day, not worrying about homework. The very first job that I got was to save up money for prom.
I’m an immigrant from South Korea. I came here for high school. I tell my Korean friends that prom’s a big deal because it’s the last day that you can actually enjoy whatever you want to do before you graduate high school. I had the Disney Channel in Korea, and all the high school movies always had a prom. I wanted to have that experience at least once.
Aaliyah Flores-Pliego, 17, Mercy High School
Prom has been rescheduled three times already. First, it was going to be in late April. Then, May 9. And now they just rescheduled it in June. The girls at our school really want to have a prom, and we have a teacher who really wants us to have one too.
I’m a big fangirl of prom. I watch a lot of movies about high school. I always envisioned prom as something special, something memorable, just because you only go to high school once.
At an all-girls school, prom is a really big deal, because we’re able to pick out a boy, and we can meet everyone’s boyfriends or guy friends. I was planning on taking this guy that I’m talking to, and we’re just really great friends. Who knows! What if we end up getting married, and we didn’t end up going to prom together? Anything could have happened on prom day.
Trey Hepburn, 18, Bellevue West High School
I was actually hoping that I would get prom king. I’m a likable person. I don’t treat anyone any different than how I would treat my family. In my head, I was thinking, I’d be dancing with somebody, and then the music stops and they announce it, and as soon as they do, everyone starts cheering and chanting my name.
It would have been really cool.
Assuming that I stay healthy through this time, I would honestly say that I’m one of the lucky people in the sense that I was able to stay home through this and not have gotten the virus. But the fact that it happened like my year, it’s kind of funny: I was actually born right before 9/11 happened, and now I’m going into the real world with coronavirus happening. It’s weird.
Nyaduel Mayang Paljor, 18, Mercy High School
I was hurt when I found out prom was canceled, because I was so excited to finally have my senior prom and look my best for the last time. I borrowed a dress. I went to Instagram and looked at some of my friends’ prom photos from last year, and saw one that I liked, so I screenshotted it and asked if I could borrow it.
I’ve had the same friend group since freshman year and we take pictures together for every dance. It’s sad that we don’t get to get our last dance photo shoot together. I thought it’d be like the movies and I’d get to take photos with my friends, you know?
It sucks, because all that stuff is gone, but at the same time, a lot of stuff that I didn’t enjoy for my school is gone as well, so it balances out. I didn’t like waking up early every single day, five times a week. Now, I don’t have to do that.
Gunnar Duke, 18, Central High School
I was disappointed when prom got canceled, because I always wear a suit that stands out a lot. This year was going to be all dark purple satin material. It had eagle cuff links, which is the mascot of our high school, and it was going to have a white cape around it, and I had golden spiked shoes that matched a golden bow tie. It was going to look really cool. I just like being different, standing out.
My grandma makes all my suits from scratch. She has since sophomore year. I usually come up with an idea, and then we go pick out a fabric that she likes, and she shows me how it’ll turn out. She’s already done with the suit part, but she’s not done with the cape.
It’s just kind of sad because the reason that it was canceled is all out of our control. There’s not a lot we can do about it. But I missed out only a little bit, because most people get two proms and I only had one. If I have kids, I’ll tell them to make the most of their prom and don’t have any regrets, because something might just come up like this again. You never know when it’s your last prom.