“The Rock” started out as a gift from the class of 2014, but it has turned into a symbol for each year’s senior class. Every year, the senior class has the opportunity to decorate the rock any way they want. The Class of 2018 had spent many hours planning and working on this year’s rock to make its design something they are proud of.

After student council officers reached out to students taking Advanced Placement Art or Honors Art Four, seniors Veja Kazlas, Gabi Smith, Marjorie Ladas and Shaelee Comettant were assigned the task of decorating the rock.

Deciding how to paint the rock was no easy task, for the options were endless. Meetings at a local Panera Bread helped the artists devise a detailed plan. Smith said the meetings included a lot of brainstorming, design sketching and drawing.

“We met four times and we were there for probably an hour [to] two hours each, so we did put a lot of time into it,” Smith said.

Last year’s rock design was one of the main influences for this year’s design. It featured a similar ombré pattern, as well as the class motto.

“We liked the ombré so much from last year we all decided to keep it. Instead of doing the orange colors again, we did the black and grey ombré,” Kazlas said.

According to Smith, creating the ombré was difficult.

“It took a little bit of testing it to figure out how to get it to fade evenly,” Smith said.

After creating the ombré base, it was time to paint the word “seniors” onto the rock’s front face. These letters came with their own set of difficulties as well.

“It took a lot of trial and error trying to get the spacing right. [Because] the face is more jagged, making it look flat when you’re standing away is pretty difficult, but we figured it out,” Smith said.

All of their hard work has given the rock a unique design and made it a proud symbol of the Class of 2018. Unfortunately, in past years, the rock has been vandalized countless times.

“I understand that kids do it and it’s not with super mean intentions, but I would be bummed because we did spend a lot of time on it,” Smith said.

According to the artists, all of their hard work was well worth it. They were overwhelmed with the compliments they have gotten on their work. The rock has quickly become a symbol of senior pride, and is something the senior grade is proud to show off.

Correction: The original version of this article did not mention that the rock was a gift from WHS’ Class of 2014. The article has been updated.