Now that the class of 2017 is gone, what is next? Many of us underclassmen remain in classes that are nearly empty, with only mundane tasks left to accomplish. For others, life at Lakewood High continues as it always has, with finals to study for and homework to do, with the only sign of the hundreds of students gone being the empty halls. This also allows nice break for many of the teachers who once taught classes full of seniors, such as Government, Writing for College, and Westshore classes.

For the Lakewood Times, the absence of seniors is quite blatant. We are left with only seven students in our classroom and without our editors, Abbey Stone and Eman Naserallah, and without one of our assistant editors, Mandy Muscatello. These individuals helped us conquer difficult articles, face the problems posed by InDesign, and brought their wonderful personalities into the classroom. Although their work will be missed greatly, we have another great year in store full of exciting articles and issues. Sam Stone and Joe Burtzlaff are set to be our next editors, and Halina Dreger will be the assistant editor of the Times. However, without the seniors who helped to shape this year’s products, we would not have reached the goals we set out to and reached the people we had hoped to.