Six years later, West Creek Academy’s first kindergarten to sixth grade graduating class returned to their elementary alma mater together one last time before going their separate ways on Wednesday.
“It was really enjoyable just to see their progress and their next steps into the future,” said West Creek teacher David Lindsay. “For us, it’s very vindicating.”
Dozens of the former West Creek students gathered in front of the school wearing their high school graduation attire of red, blue, orange, purple and silver robes.
“It’s interesting because some people look exactly the same and then some people you have to like look at them for a couple of seconds then be like, ‘Oh!’” said Elle Denlea, a former West Creek student.
Some students ran toward one another and embraced. Others exclaimed that they were unaware of where their former classmate was graduating from.
“It’s really nostalgic, but also really nice to reconnect with so many people that I haven’t seen in probably six years,” said Taylor Drake, a former West Creek student. “It’s kind of like a full-circle moment to be back where it started.”
Former teachers made their rounds saying hello to all of their former students. As Denlea said, some found their students to look the same and others completely different.
Even parents of the students were greeting other parents, teachers and students remembering times from over six years ago — memories that will never be forgotten.
“There’s just a lot of interesting aspects of the school,” said Denlea. “We all still talk about like, ‘Oh, remember at West Creek when we did this?’ I think all the West Creek kids have a different experience than some of the other elementary schools in the district. That kind of bond is just like, ‘Oh, yeah, we were the West Creek kids.’”
Friendships were rekindled and, with this age of social media, will be maintained, even if this is one of the last moments the “West Creek kids” will see each other before embarking on different journeys.
“It was a really great school and they really encouraged us to make friends and kind of break out of those normal cliques that you would get into, especially in elementary school,” said Drake. “It’s really awesome that we were able to create those relationships and now with social media, we can maintain them and follow everybody as they go off to college, or wherever they go.”
