On March 17, 2020 my whole life changed. I never thought things would change this much. Governor Laura Kelly announced that schools will be shut down for the rest of the school year due to a global pandemic. I was so upset because my track season got cancelled and it was my freshman year. I put in a lot of hard work to go to that track meet. Our first track meet was scheduled the Thursday after spring break.

A couple of months go by and summer conditioning was supposed to start. It had got pushed back with regulations being applied. We all had to wear our masks and stay 6ft apart.

The pandemic affected our day-to-day life as well. Places started to shut down and no one was open to public. Grocery stores were running out of food, paper products, sanitation items, etc. because everyone was panicking. The only businesses that were open were “essential workers” and that included my dad. My dad works for Reddi Industries and he had to go to peoples’ houses and fix their electrical and their air conditioning systems and heaters. He was putting our family at risk with catching COVID and bringing it home to us. Although we did not catch COVID until mid December, it was still scary.

Later in July, us athletes were told we were not allowed to have our season because it was too risky. We then started a protest to change USD259 board members’ minds. They decided to let us have our season but no fans were allowed and we had to wear our masks. Later in the season, the board decided to let us have 4 fans per athlete, but they had to socially distance and wear masks. After the fall sports ended, the board had decided to not allow fans at the winter sports games because they were all inside sports and they thought COVID would be spread. They ended up changing it to allowing only parents/guardians. The school year started off 100% online, and in my opinion, it sucked.

In January the board voted to finally start letting students come back face-to-face, but they still had to learn off of a computer. Even though school is not the same, it still feels good to be back in-person. COVID numbers started to go down and less and less cases are showing up and they came out with a vaccine that everyone is starting to get.

Track season is back and we still have to wear masks but at least we get our season. Our first meet is this Thursday and I’m not sure we are prepared. The pandemic affected my life more than I thought it ever would.