“Grease,” “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” “Superbad,” “Booksmart,” “High School Musical 3: Senior Year.”

Senior year has served as a legendary backdrop for some of the most iconic coming-of-age films of all time. Chances are that long before we ever entered high school hallways, we imagined our own main-character moments—complete with memorable lines and a soundtrack to match.

In reality, high school rarely mirrors the movies—it doesn’t play out like a blockbuster. There are no Saturday detentions that forge lifelong friendships, no hierarchy of Heathers, and certainly no perfectly timed prom dance choreography.

With three months until graduation, my high school experience has been interesting, for sure, but rarely cinematic—more pop quizzes than plot twists, more awkward moments than award-worthy monologues.

And yet, even without a script, some moments deserve to be remembered. While we can’t roll the credits on our high school experience with a big, dramatic speech, for the first time in Community history, we can leave behind some final words.

This year, the Class of 2025 will be the first to include senior quotes in the yearbook—giving students the chance to craft their own lasting lines, one final piece of dialogue in the story of their high school years.

The initiative, which launched on Jan. 28, was spearheaded by senior Josh Waggoner and quickly approved by yearbook advisor Mrs. Jennifer Kelly. Quote submissions can be submitted through a Google Form posted in the Senior Google Classroom until Feb. 3.

Just days before the project’s launch, the idea was little more than a passing thought in Waggoner’s mind.

Noticing that Community’s yearbook, “Reverie,” did not include senior quotes, Waggoner pitched the concept to Kelly as he walked past the yearbook classroom.

“I might as well just go in and ask,” Waggoner said. “And it worked.”

Despite initial concerns about the added workload, Kelly ultimately agreed to the proposal.

“My first response was, ‘This is a lot of work,’” Kelly said, citing the challenge of managing “Reverie” with only eight students on staff this year.

To ensure the project’s success, Waggoner committed to joining the yearbook staff full-time, dropping his seventh-hour class and immediately assisting with the rollout.

“I went up to her,” Waggoner said. “Next day, I’m in yearbook, and we’ve got the Google Form up.”

Senior quotes, a long-standing tradition in some high school yearbooks, have never been featured in Kelly’s more than two decades advising “Reverie.” The program attempted to implement them during the 2019-2020 school year but abandoned the task due to issues with missing and inappropriate submissions, along with the added burden of producing the yearbook during COVID.

This time, Kelly and Waggoner established clear guidelines to ensure all quotes meet school standards, including prohibiting timestamped submissions for referenced material.

The senior class is “Reverie”’s biggest customer base, and the addition of quotes offers students another way to connect with their final high school memories.

“They’re buzzing now,” Kelly said. “‘What’s my quote?’ ‘What did they say?’ ‘What did you do?’”

For Waggoner, the project is about giving seniors a lasting connection to their high school years.

“Thirty years from now, you can look back and say, ‘This is what this person said. This is what I said,’” he said. “And just sort of remember the high school experience.”