I’ll graduate from Lewisville High School this year.

It’s a plan I’ve set in motion by announcing it to my classes and by writing this article. Add to that a visit down to Austin to begin the official paperwork and it will be set in stone, mixed in concrete, finalized!

Yep, in June, I’ll be finished.

Gone, baby, gone.

Let me firmly establish this fact: I’ve decided to depart. I’m the one who set this date. I don’t have a transcript that is finally complete, nor a stay that is finally over. This departure is fully on my own terms. No one has said, “You’ve been here too long, now get going.”

Nope, I’m about to end my run here at LHS and I’m welcoming it; eager for the end to arrive, but admittedly, certain that I’ll be sad and a bit overwhelmed when it comes.

OK. I’ll admit it! I’m scared of the Great Unknown that lies ahead.

Kinda like the rest of you seniors out there.

This departure comes a short 40 years from the first time I stepped into the now-missing building that graced Main Street, as opposed to the discretely set back off Main Street campus that we have. I walked into this world as a college student eager to begin student teaching, and just never left.

I’m older and wiser than I was then. In my first few years, nobody gave me credit for being a teacher — I looked like my students in age, and probably acted like them in experience. I’m now the one who stops the newly-minted teachers asking for their passes or ID’s because they look so young.

I’ll proclaim again: I will FINISH my life at LHS this year, and so will nearly 940 students who are looking ahead and eager to finish their time as a high schooler. With my eyes wide open, I’ve decided to live this year as a senior and this column marks the first of my monthly muses and rants on what it means to be a SENIOR.

Because I’m an English teacher nerd, I turned to a dictionary as I began to explore this idea, this word, “senior.” In case you didn’t know, the first purely English dictionary, A Table Alphabeticall, (I told you I was a nerd), was printed in 1604 and was compiled by a schoolteacher named Robert Cawdrey. Even then, schoolteachers felt the need to collect words for later use. If you want to see the only surviving copy of it you’ve got to head to the Bodleian Library in Oxford, England – according to the often searched and rarely credited research tool called “Wiki.”

Nearly 300 years would pass until the granddaddy of all dictionaries appeared, the OED, or Oxford English Dictionary. It’s an amazing book that is updated every three months and lists the first time the word appears in print.

Probably the most interesting part of this dictionary’s lore is that the organizer of this huge undertaking, William Chester Minor, was locked up in an asylum for the criminally insane while he orchestrated the collection of all words known in the English language.

You can see a well-worn copy of the OED in room E114 if you’d like to look at one. That’s a shorter trip than to England!

Ah, but I digress.

Look up “senior” in various online dictionaries and you’ll get a smattering of terms like “older,” “more experienced,” “high or higher in rank or status.” Of course, these sites will reference individuals who are in their final year of university or high school life, but I’d prefer to focus on the meanings that put value on the status, that being a senior is a responsibility to those under them, not just focus on the fact that individuals are ending their time in school.

As seniors, we all owe those who follow a hand up, a clue of what to expect, or a kind pat on the back. We must encourage undergraduates to just keep going, because one day, they too, can reach this goal. It’s an awareness that I’m planning to use to re-energize myself, as I start this, my last, school year. Who’s with me?

Seniors: Class of 2015.  It’s got a nice ring to it!

Editor’s note: Karen Cooke has taught English at LHS since 1978. She was selected as the school’s teacher of the year in 2010-11. She is retiring at the end of the school year and will provide commentary on her final year of teaching at LHS as well as reflections on her career in this series of columns.