The sun beat down on eight rows of members of the Class of 2019 as they sat and waited to sign away their academic futures on May 24, 2019, during the third annual Academic Signing Day. An event designed for seniors who wanted to officially sign and commit to their chosen college in front of their parents and peers, Academic Signing Day is a celebration of the seniors’ accomplishment and an ode to their future 4 years.

During the process of Academic Signing Day as groups of seniors would walk on stage and sit down with a pen in hand, a description of each senior would be read by the announcers Melanie Lindsey and Justin Frazier, who alternated the microphone between each group, and listed the students’ name, the college they are going to attend, their most influential teacher and a lower class student who would receive their academic legacy.

Students of all grades, teachers of all topics and parents of seniors gathered in Foothills campus to witness the Class of 2019 as they signed their name and sealed their encouraging future.

As Lindsey, while addressing the first group of signing seniors, said, “seniors, pens in hand, your life and your parent’s money, sign it away,” a thunder of applause was heard across the school and Academic Signing Day was officially started.

The entirety of the event was organized by Associated Student Body (ASB) member Claire Renar who remarked that “there is a lot of organization that goes into the event” which was seen as the preparation for the big day counted in the 20-hour range.

However, this hard work paid off as Renar believes that “everything turned out exactly how I wanted it to.”

This sentiment was felt throughout the audience in both non-participants and those that were preparing to sign.

Jolie Jannone ‘20 commented on the significance of the day and claimed “that it was memorable and I think it’s a day that they [seniors] will remember forever because it was that special.”

The importance of the event was that Academic Signing Day was able “to recognize that the seniors are moving onto the next big stage in their life,” as Thomas Liang ‘20 believes.

Ashley Rogers ‘19, who was a participant in the event decided to attend Academic Signing Day because she thinks that “it was a really awesome experience to see where everyone is going because we’ve all been with each other for four years.”

Most importantly, Academic Signing Day was a time for the entirety of Foothill to celebrate the seniors.

As Jannone declared when referring to the participating seniors, “the teachers get to celebrate them, the parents of the students get to celebrate them and most importantly the students on campus will celebrate them and remember them.”

Editor’s Note: Claire Renar was not involved with the reporting for or production of this article.