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Watauga High School Senior Athletes Featured on Banners in Downtown Boone

By Nathan Ham

With the cancelation of school and the remainder of the spring sports athletic season, the Watauga Pioneer Booster Club and the Town of Boone put their collective minds together to honor the senior athletes for the class of 2020.

Each year, banners are put up around the high school with the names and photos of the senior athletes. This year, however, with the school being closed for the rest of the academic year, the banners have now been put up around downtown Boone.

“We were very pleased to see our senior athletes honored on the banners in downtown Boone. They and their classmates have been hugely impacted by the extended school closure and will have to miss out on so many of the rituals and traditions that we expect at the culmination of our high school careers,” said Garrett Price, director of communications for Watauga County Schools. “We are immensely grateful to the Watauga Pioneer Booster Club and the Town of Boone for honoring and recognizing these athletes who will be sidelined for their final season because of COVID-19.”

Lane Moody, the downtown development coordinator for the Town of Boone, said that the banners went up last Wednesday after booster club member Emily Rothrock reached out to the town to see if they would be willing to help out.

“Public works made it happen and it looks fantastic,” Moody said.

Moody added that the town is trying to work with Boone Chamber of Commerce President/CEO David Jackson and some local businesses to add even more recognition for the Class of 2020 graduates. Businesses may decorate their windows or use their signage to congratulate the seniors and provide some words of encouragement for a senior class that certainly didn’t get a chance to make as many memories as they would have liked in their final year of high school.

“It is a weird year and I feel like it is just unfortunate in a lot of different ways,” said Moody.