How we’ve grown — and grown together — in four years

in the house all day driving them crazy. I know that must’ve required a large amount of restraint.

Finally, I’d like to thank all of the nurses, doctors, grocery store clerks and everyone else who is on the front lines helping us survive this COVID-19 crisis. You are the heroes of this pandemic and give us hope for the future.

I know this is not how we wanted our senior year to end, but I think it is important to remember how we’ve faced adversity before and how it actually brought us closer together.

In 2017, we helped Hurricane Harvey victims by donating clothes and restoring victims’ damaged family photos. A year later, school shootings in America,

including here in Texas, inspired us to March for Our Lives. And who can forget the great bat invasion of 2019 that brought us closer together as a Comm Arts-Taft family?

Those challenges instilled in us the adaptability, perseverance and teamwork we are using today to survive COVID, and I know we will come out of this crisis stronger as a school and as a community.

As individuals, we also should remember how much each of us has grown over the past four years. We went from immature, annoying eighth graders who never turned in their work on time to slightly less annoying 12th graders who — let’s face it — still don’t turn in our work on time, but who hopefully do so a little bit less often.

We used to irritate our parents and teachers by flipping water bottles as freshmen. And who can forget the sweet sound of a ukulele flowing through the hallways? We can all laugh at the memory of our favorite teacher in the turkey costume around Thanksgiving, or at how you threw up after eating too much watermelon on Earth Day.

Think of how lucky we were to attend a school where the students love each other so much they make sure everyone gets a card on Valentine’s Day, or how this school has so much spirit and pride students stayed to cheer on our team at the homecoming game this school year, even though it was 40 degrees and pouring rain.

All in all, whenever you’re feeling down about how senior year ended, remind yourself you still have 3 ½ years of amazing memories to look back on and know that the trials of the last few years have prepared us for the current crisis.

As my grandfather told me once, “Tough times don’t last, but tough people do.”

No matter what you face in the future, always be “Raider Proud” and “Northside Strong.”

Thank you all. I’ll really miss you guys. Peace out.

Taylor McClung: “Those challenges instilled in us the adaptability, perseverance and teamwork we are using today to survive COVID.”