Longtime friends depart high school years for future

Five of the students had been classmates together from kindergarten through St. Helen School in Vero Beach, while seven had attended kindergarten through St. Anastasia School in Fort Pierce, all before moving on to John Carroll.

The seniors, who graduated May 20, 2022, include: Jack Carlon, Ella Clark, Amy Kenney, Erika Malits and Rylie Marone, all formerly of St. Helen School; and Ethan Blackwell, Grace Fee, Grace Hamilton, Ashton Lalicon, Will Mitchell, Hayley Peper and Connor Zrallack, all former students at St. Anastasia.

They were all part of the high school’s Alpha peer ministry team, which is a leadership class that gives seniors the opportunity to share their faith and minister to their fellow students. Alpha is directed by Jennie Capezza, director of campus ministry.

Malits explained that Alpha teaches seniors how to lead retreats and participate in liturgies for younger students. “We also go out into the community and do stuff for other schools, like St. Joseph, St. Anastasia and St. Bernadette,” she said.

“It’s interesting to see people grow in their faith. I’m probably one of them,” Clark said. “I wasn’t super religious before, but this kind of let me grow into my faith, and other people were strong before coming into Alpha and others were seeking that desire for being closer to God.”

These students formed their own community by being with many of the same classmates since 3-year-old kindergarten.

“I’d say we’re nothing short of a family,” Fee said about her friends from St. Anastasia. “Just going to school every single day for 15 years, we know each other like the back of our hands. It’s going to be crazy different going forward, going to college, but I’m so grateful for the experience just getting to know people on that deeper level as the years go on.”

Almost all of the classmates in the two groups are planning to attend different colleges. Marone said it has been comforting to be around friends with whom she grew up, and moving on without them will be strange, but not unexpected. That change is certainly something they have been well prepared to handle.

“I think about walking outside your comfort zone in general, like losing that habit of always seeing the same people in the same small town in the same small school,” Clark said. “It’s going to be a little shaky at first, but I think we’ve all been nurtured enough to definitely walk out of our comfort zone.”

A few of the students said they feel their lives are an “open book” to the circle of friends they have had for so many years.

“I think our circles expand and change over the years, but at the same time I think we’re constants for one another,” Fee said.

Malits added that “we’ve been given the hard and soft skills to expand beyond the environment of both St. Helen and John Carroll. We’ll always have these communities, but we know that there’s something else out there for us.”

Not having that faithful support network close by in college will be hard at first, Fee said, but they will be able to touch base on holidays and school breaks.  

“But then again, it won’t ever be the same as it was,” she said. “I started to get a little sad the past few weeks about it, but all the memories we have we’ll be able to talk about for years and tell our kids. I think we’ll find ways back to each other, definitely.”

For information about John Carroll High School, visit www.johncarrollhigh.com/ or call 772-464-5200. Stay updated on the diocesan Office of Catholic Schools at www.diocesepbschools.org, or follow on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter @diocesepbschools.