Clovis High seniors want to start new tradition

CLOVIS — Before their mortarboards soar into the air at graduation, the Clovis High School senior class will send some balloons into the sky.

Marissa Cabrera, the student body president, said seniors plan to meet at 5:45 a.m. Saturday at Leon Williams Stadium to release balloons with their goals written on them.

“We just wanted to set a tradition for the future just so more classes can start doing this,” Cabrera said.

She said the idea came from a fellow student council member in New Mexico who told Cabrera about it at the annual New Mexico Association of Student Councils conference.

“I just thought that it would be cool to bring it to Clovis because our school doesn’t do too much,” Cabrera said.

With several goals of her own to accomplish before the end of the school year, Cabrera might need a bigger balloon.

“My goals are just to graduate high school, have a good time, meet as many new people as I can and get ready for college,” she said.

Cabrera said the student council has been spreading the word about the event via social media and the school announcements. With a class of about 300 students, Cabrera said she was hoping to be joined by 100 to 200 of her classmates on Saturday.

“It’s our first year doing it so it’s just kind of a trial,” she said.

She said the early gathering is so the release of the balloons can coincide with the sunrise to make the best possible photos, an apparent necessity in the age of Instagram.

“The girl was telling me that as the sun rises it just looks really beautiful and it just created really cool pictures for it,” Cabrera said. “Our generation, especially my class, is all about pictures so that’s why I thought it would be a really cool idea just so that way we have pictures for the yearbook and stuff like that.”

Cabrera said the plan is to bring things full circle at the end of the school year with a senior sunset event to include a bonfire.