As students try to hold on to traditions amidst COVID protocol, seniors have embraced the ones that they can, including painting senior parking spots. Seniors are able to choose their parking spots and paint it to express their creativity, personality, and school spirit.
Senior Ally Surley appreciates the individuality that painting senior parking spots allows them, while also giving them preferential parking closer to the school.
“It is a tradition,” Ally said. “It’s cool to see everyone else do it too. My spot is a painting of Shrek and it says ‘Get out me spot’ in green letters. I love Shrek a lot and I like the ‘get out me swamp’ meme so I changed it to work for me.”
Ally was able to have an even more unique experience since she was able to connect to her parking spot through her family lineage.
“I have the same spot my sister had last year and it is pretty cool because I got to paint over it,” Ally said. “That was pretty cool because we kept it in the family.”
Senior Emily Parker appreciates how painting senior parking spots allows family and friends time to bond and get creative together.
“I was talking to my mom about what I should do for my spot, and she said, ‘Holy cow, you are a senior!’ and I thought that was a good idea since I love cow print,” Emily said. “My mom and I spent a lot of afternoons together painting the spot which was really memorable.”
Despite the fun that comes out of painting parking spots, seniors also faced some difficulties while painting.
“Buying paint was extremely difficult because everyone was buying paint at the same time,” Emily said. “It was definitely stressful, but fortunately I was able to get the paint I needed.”
Senior Emily Belinski also expresses how the different weather conditions in Texas affected the way she had to plan her project.
“Trying to work around the rain was so hard because we would get something painted and then have to worry about the rain washing it away,” Belinski said. “There was a huge downpour on one of the days we did the majority of the work, but luckily it survived. Trying to avoid the heat and the Texas weather in general was hard.”
Belinski took inspiration from her memories of Utah and made them come to life for her parking spot.
“My parking spot is a mountain scene with a white river running through it and it’s really cool,” Belinksi said. “It’s inspired from when I used to live in Utah. The colors are supposed to be almost like a sunset, colors of the mountains against a blue sky, and a really orange sun.”
Senior Ellie Jones thinks painting senior parking spots creates a feeling of nostalgia, and brings back memories of her childhood.
“It took a lot of planning and I was like, ‘oh, what do I want to do?’ And I was like ‘Oh Barbie!’ because in Kindergarten I loved Barbie,” Ellie said. “I think it’s fun to go back to where you started so that’s what I did.”
Not only do seniors enjoy having the privilege of having their own parking spot to paint, they also recognize it as a way underclassmen can look forward to their senior year.
“Seniors enjoy the individuality of it because their spots show their personalities,” Ellie said. “It helps give the underclassmen something to look forward to.”
For some seniors, being a part of the tradition to paint a parking spot is a memorable experience that they will never forget.
“It’s our last time to make our mark,” Belinski said. “Being able to do my own the way I wanted it to be and having my vision come to life will always be a memory I’ll carry with me.”
