Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

By Andy Rhinehart

A last round of bus rides on road trips. Senior Nights. State championship hopes.

The current global COVID-19 pandemic denied many of the trappings of their final seasons for Polk County High School’s senior spring sports athletes. Teams played only a handful of events before the schedule came to an end on March 13, giving seniors just a sliver of their last spring in Wolverine blue and white.

While memories unmade cannot be replaced, PCHS administration and staff did want to celebrate the school’s 31 spring senior athletes with individual community recognition.

Thus Monday morning, workers from the Town of Tryon and Town of Columbus joined PCHS Principal Dr. Brandon Schweitzer and Athletic Director Rex Wells in hanging a banner for each senior in their respective towns.

Nine banners now fly from posts in Tryon, with 17 gracing Mills Street in Columbus and five more attached to the fence surrounding the tennis courts in Saluda. A picture of each senior is featured on the banner along with their name and spring sport.

“There is absolutely nothing that will ever replace what was taken from our senior athletes,” Schweitzer said. “This is just a small gesture to let them know how much we care about them and that we are so very proud to have them represent us as Wolverines.”

Senior athletes will also be honored in late May on PolkSports as well as in the June issue of Life in Our Foothills magazine. Polk County Schools officials are also working on a project to recognize the senior classes at both PCHS and Polk County Early College.