Lake Stevens High School - Pilchuck Yearbook (Lake Stevens, WA)

Page 8 text:

own singularity. Counselors advise us, teachers enlighten us, administrators punish us, and all the attention seems to create the illusion of importance. In high school everyone is an individual. You walk down hallways, go to football games, or just sit in the classroom, and everyone seems to be doing his own thing. A person may not win at a single thing in high school, but at least he is recognized for having tried. The quest for individuality is to some a contest, or feat of endurance. Each act we perform in high school finds its signifi- cance in the will to be seen by others as a separate entity, whether we be a fast track man, a student leader, or a top scholar. The graduating senior strongly senses his own individuality, and that of the people 4

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 I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. John F. Kennedy We live in an era of vastness. Modern man is continually buffeted by the bits and pieces of social flotsam which constitute living in our time. In the midst of the smoke created by our cultural explosion stands a very battered and beaten figure — the solitary individual who fears be- coming lost in a shuffle of nowhere men. Today's individual fights a constant battle against the loss of his own identity, and the only weapon he carries is his will to remain singular: an I instead of a We. The graduating senior is but another in- dividual who must enter a depersonalized society. High School is in many ways a fantasy. Its door open widely to those of us who would enter, and for three lovely years we are entertained with the idea of our

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around him. This feeling goes beyond people to mere things—from the remem- brance of a locker used during sophomore year, to the ruts in the stairways which my feet helped to create. But when the graduating senior puts on his cap and gown, he leaves the high school world behind him forever. To the countless individuals who follow him he is a name used in the past tense, or a tiny picture in the main hall, each quite insignificant to those students of the future. 5