High School Senior Stays Upbeat
“I love Monticello,” Makayla told me. “How could you not like Monticello?” she asked. Makayla Wages has lived in Monticello her entire life and, like many in her family, she has attended every grade in the Jasper County County School System, a school system she loves. This year, Class of 2020, is her year to graduate. And, now, like students across the country, she is spending the remainder of her senior year at home.
“Don’t take anything for granted,” she said, sharing that she believes she and her friends, and possibly all of us, were taking things for granted. “I admit,” she said, “there have been times I have locked myself in my room and cried. School was my space. I had my friends. I had my alone time. There’s no alone time. And, it saddens me to think the people I’ve grown up with since we were three and four years old and the fact I might not see them at school again is really sad.”
“Your senior year is life changing and one of your biggest life choices and now it’s gone. I should be at colleges visiting dorms and meeting my roommates. I’ve done everything I was supposed to do in 9th through 11th grade so that I could have an easier senior year. I took all my AP courses. I’m really an organized person and this is hard. I don’t like things going off plan,” she shared.
Makayla’s mom, Amanda Proctor, is and always has been her biggest supporter and her mom is doing her best to try and comfort Makayla and her sisters in this world we are currently living in. At home with her mom, step-dad, Wesley Proctor, and her younger sisters, Macey a freshman at the high school and Mattie a seventh grader at the middle school,as well as two-year-old Philip, Makayla keeps busy being a big sister.
“I love having little siblings. My life would be so boring without them. I like sharing shoes and clothes with them and I like being their teacher,”she said.
A high school athlete, she was a member of the Lady Canes softball team and the tennis team. “Coach Jenkins (her softball coach) makes us play a spring sport to stay in shape,”she said. Choosing tennis, she was surprised at how much she likes it. “Tennis is a challenge. You have to have really good control,”she said.
As for softball, she’s been playing almost since she began walking. Shoulder surgery in the tenth grade did not stop her. She worked hard after surgery to earn her place back at her favorite spots- right field and center field, playing her senior season this past fall. With school athletics cancelled, she won’t be able to play her senior year on the tennis team.
“I’ll miss not being able to do the grad walk the most,”she told me. The grad walk, she explained to me, is when all of the seniors dress up in their caps and gowns and walk through the halls of the other schools—the primary, elementary and middle schools—to let the younger students see and know that they, too, can graduate. She will miss her prom, too, though it might be rescheduled she told me. “I bought my prom dress and I look at it every day. This sucks!” she said.
She also misses seeing her mentee, Autumn, a 4th grader. Makayla thought she would have time to say goodbye to her. “Fourth graders are so funny, they ask a lot of questions,” she shared. One of her favorite questions and one that still makes her laugh is when her mentee asked her why snot was green.
Makayla, describing herself as “a half glass full kind of person,” remains upbeat. This week, the week of April 6th, is spring break for Jasper County. Instead of a possible trip to Panama City, she is spending spring break at her dad’s, BJ Wages, house at the lake. “I just keep thinking about the positive stuff,”she said.
“I love to help people. That is why I was put here on this earth. I want to be the light in the dark place,”she told me. “My favorite bible quote is ‘Love the Neighbor as thyself’. We have a lot of love in our hearts and it is easier to love than hate,”she proclaimed. She is very close with her family and her Monticello Baptist Church youth group. “How everyone cares about each other is amazing,”she said.
And, now, more than ever, with the life threatening risks and the world in need of health care workers, she is determined to pursue her long term dream and plan to work in the healthcare field. She has spent four years enrolled in the high school’s healthcare program and is working towards being a Personal Care Technician (PCT). She is scheduled to attend Young Harris College in the fall. After Young Harris, her hope is to go to Emory University to get her degree to be a Physician’s Assistant (PA).
“The road goes on and the party never ends” from the song The Road Goes on Forever, is Makayla’s senior quote, one she picked at the last possible minute and one she wasn’t quite sure fit. Until now.
