The last semester of a student’s high school career is a busy one, with last games played, last music concerts, prom, awards banquets, and finally, graduation.

But this is not the reality for Brown County High School’s class of 2020. Students throughout America are now studying at home during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We have a lot that should be happening right now that isn’t. It’s heartbreaking. There will be small ways to celebrate these seniors and big ways to celebrate these seniors,” said Superintendent Laura Hammack at the April 16 Brown County Schools Board of Trustees meeting, which was conducted over phone and video conference.

A survey was sent to seniors and their parents to collect ideas. High school Principal Matt Stark set up a task force of parents, students and staff to go through the answers and come up with a plan.

One part of that plan is happening this week at the Brown County High School football field.

Teachers Chris Townsend, Dean Keefauver and Dan Lewellen created personalized yard signs for the seniors at the high school’s Eagle Manufacturing business. Those signs went up on Monday around the inside of the high school’s track with “Class of 2020” spray-painted on the football field. Stadium lights will remain on all night in celebration of the seniors Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

“We’ll space them all the way around the track so people can come, they can keep their social distance and see it,” Stark said.

When seniors come to pick up their caps and gowns on Friday, May 1, they will be allowed to take their sign with them. If students cannot take their sign with them at that point, Stark said the school will deliver it to them.

Cap and gown pick-up will be from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Friday at the high school.

Most in the community know a senior who has been affected by the pandemic and the sudden conclusion of their time at the high school.

“This has impacted our sports, banquets, the play, the last music concert, the last choir concert, just all of the great things we do in April and May to finish out the year and to really celebrate culmination of a K-12 education,” Stark said.

“To now miss out on, or not be able to do that, because of a worldwide pandemic is heart-wrenching,” he said.

Townsend came up with the idea to create the yard signs and surprise the seniors, and Keefauver and Lewellen offered their assistance. Townsend and Keefauver are advisers to Eagle Manufacturing.

Stark said “great kudos” go out to those teachers, along with the maintenance crew for prepping the track field.

Credit also goes to the seniors and their families who are stepping up to help find ways to celebrate, he added. “I’m just thrilled with people coming up with different ideas.”

The yard signs are not the only way the district plans to celebrate this year’s graduating class. More plans are in the works.

The resilience of the seniors during this time is something Stark said he is proud of. “There’s the first moment where we all realized, this just sucks. As an administrator, I would love to have a better, more descriptive vocabulary than that, but it just sucks. None of this is great. There’s that moment and then it’s like, now, what are we going to do?”

All of the seniors want an in-person graduation, Stark said. “They really want that if that’s possible in any way, shape or form.”

“There’s some tears for prom and everything else, but at the end of the day, everybody recognizes they also need to stay safe. It’s not just about you, or me, or one of them getting sick. That’s obviously something we don’t want, but it’s also about carrying it to somebody else to somebody else.”

“Our community lost a great man in Martin Travelstead,” he said. Travelstead is, so far, the only Brown County resident to die of the virus. “We don’t want to have that. We want to minimize that as much as we can,” Stark said.

The parent task force discussed the possibility of having an in-person graduation ceremony where all of the students could be together to watch each other walk across the stage, but no one else would be allowed to watch in person.

“One parent said, ‘That would be really hard, but I would be willing to do that just so the kids could have an in-person graduation,’” Stark said.

No decision has been made on a graduation ceremony yet or what that would look like.

“We’re going to figure out ways to honor our students and still give opportunities for as many and as wide of breadth of celebrations as we can,” Stark said.