As the end of junior year approaches, it is time to start planning for the usual senior traditions such as senior girls shirts and freshman girls initiation.

A few weeks ago, junior Avery Riedel decided to start a group chat on Snapchat with as many upcoming senior girls as possible. 

“I made the group chat because a lot of people had been talking about it and said that I am one of the leaders of our grade and that I should just take charge so I did,” Riedel said.

Riedel also wanted to avoid the possibility of not everyone being included in the group.

“I knew that if someone else made it that a large chunk of kids like band and choir kids could possibly be left out,” Riedel said.

A big tradition for senior girls is to have matching shirts. The class chose junior Madeline Natvig to design and be in charge of the shirts.

“It was not very stressful for me personally because I had the creative freedom to design what I think looked cute,” Natvig said.

The class all helped brainstorm different designs in order for Natvig to have an idea of what everyone wanted.

“We wanted something that would represent our class’s personality as a whole,” Natvig said. “The ideas ranged from 80s to a modern format with fun colors.”

Riedel helped Natvig come up with ideas that would please everyone in some way.

“I gave some input directly to Madeline to help combine other’s ideas into a bigger compromised idea,” Riedel said.

Many knew that not everyone would agree on one design, but the class just wanted to have something fun all together.

“I knew that some people would be mad no matter what,” Riedel said. “It was an $11 shirt that will help keep the tradition alive and bring our grade closer.”

After Natvig received all the ideas, she began working on the different designs on Custom Ink.

“I actually made the designs during an office aid block,” Natvig said. “It did not take very long since I was familiar with the custom ink format.”

Natvig made a few different designs and got help from others to see which ones would be the favorites.

“I had five designs originally and asked a few friends to help me pick the top three that would be featured in the main vote,” Natvig said.

After the final designs were chosen, Natvig got everyone’s input on the winning design in an organized manner.

“To figure out which design we wanted to go with, I made a google form to vote on one of the three final designs,” Natvig said. “It was fun to see what everyone liked as the votes came in.”

The students all decided on a design and a color for the shirts together, and Natvig made a few different color options to make sure everyone liked them.

“I am happy with the design we picked. It’s pretty versatile and the colors pop very well with the white hoodie,” Natvig said. “We made sure to have a colored t-shirt option for those who did not like the idea of a white hoodie.”

Once the shirts were ordered, Natvig was told that everyone gets $2 back when the shirts arrive due to ordering over the necessary amount, and the class decided to donate the money to freshman Westen Erwin’s Go Fund Me page for his recent accident.

“I am happy that our class could do something for Westen and his family,” Natvig said. “I would not have felt comfortable with keeping it so the options were to either give everyone back $2 or donate it to a good cause.”