Despite many COVID-19 restrictions, senior students at Parshall High School are grateful to have still received recognition.

Senior student Katherine Fox said, “Other schools, they have it worse than us because they don’t get to have something like this.”

Every year since 2016, Parshall High School has celebrated its seniors with an end of year ‘star quilt’ ceremony, right inside their local rec center.

“These quilts, they’re each made differently, they’re made from cotton, they’re made from satin, they’re just made from all kinds of different designs and we started it as just as an incentive and it’s kind of gone on to be something students expected as their senior year,” Parshall Public School School Success Coordinator Dusty Olson said.

But like most others, circumstances following COVID-19 forced the cancellation of the ceremony. So instead, Olson came up with the idea to invite both family and community members to line the downtown streets of Parshall from Main Street to First Avenue and cheer on each student as they received their quilt.

Senior students Fox and Preston Packineau both felt that changing their way of doing things wasn’t such a bad thing

“I think it’s kind of cool that it’s outside, it’s usually in the gym, so just to see everybody outside and driving around or like on Main Street is cool,” Packineau said.

“A lot of other people now get to come to it instead of just like the school part of it,” Fox said.

Olson says he appreciates the community stepping up last minute to make it all come together. He said it couldn’t have been done without the group effort.

“I just hope that we can keep this going for years and years and continue to show our Parshall High School tradition,” he said.