Popping the bubble: What teens will remember about their great city

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The Coppell welcome sign near Highway 121 on Sandy Lake Road. The signs mark the entrance to the city. Photo by Amelia Vanyo.

Growing up in Coppell (or as it’s more commonly known, Boppell) is the greatest experience a growing kid can have. What if not a like minded small town could a cultured millennial want?

 

It is with heavy hearts that high school students leave Coppell, like birds pushed from the nest. But as they travel into the big, scary world, full of Sylvesters, they look back upon Coppell and its happenings with a full heart.

 

Before seniors are off let us have some satirical fun reminding them what they are going to miss.

 

The Saint Ann’s Carnival

We all at some point or another have made our way down to the St. Ann’s  Carnival. Conveniently planned for either the year’s rainiest or hottest weekends, the carnival is the prime place to get yelled at by ride technicians and listen to live music turned up to a near deadly volume. Since it is a charity event, your wallet better be ready to pack a punch as the carnival is complete with overpriced food and fun. How else would anyone want to spend their weekend?

 

Football Games

Of course, football is a part of our lives, we’re in Texas. Whether it’s Dallas or Coppell, everyone loves their Cowboys. If you’re going to the game to support the team, the drill team or the marching band, football games are an amazing way to experience extreme weather and baby powder storms. But forget the band, the noisemakers coming from the students section…nothing was more like music to my ears.

 

Big T-Shirts

For the students going out of state, Coppell’s love for potato bags – or, T-shirts if you will – will be a thing of the past. The preppy fashion choice is a purely southern style, and it is beginning to define our big state almost as much as cowboy hats and boots do. But I guess the extra large T-shirts make sense, really, as they say “everything’s bigger in Texas.”

 

West Dome

It was all too easy to climb up the old Coppell Middle School West dome and sit on the spray paint covered slope, enjoying the crisp air of teen rebellion. What else demerits society if not this display of rebellion? What else defines being a teenager if not the untouchable feeling you get when you are an entire 20 feet above the ground?

 

Pep rallies

Nothing hypes up school spirit like ditching class to celebrate our football team. The celebration gives us all a sense of charitability for cheering on such an underappreciated group. It’s good to know we love the underdog once in awhile, right? Of course, we also had to give some attention to the band, cheerleaders and drill team, not that they needed any more of it. Luckily, we never paid too much attention to other sports teams or clubs, god forbid they receive too much praise.

 

Horses

Because we could not possibly be more stereotypical, horses are obviously a part of our day to day life at Coppell High School. The horses that shared a fence with the CHS parking lot were just enough of a cliche for a small Texas town. This way when we get asked if we rode horses to school, we can say “no, but there were always some by the parking lot.” And we will sound just hick enough.

 

Coppell Moms

There is no defining feature that screams Coppell as much as our Coppell Moms. Bedecked in Kendra Scott, cowboy marchandise and rhinestone covered hats and flip flops, these women made our town unique by being cookie cutter versions of their endless group of friends. Seriously, no one looked as cool as they did pulling up to the PTO meeting in their SUVs and Range Rovers like they owned the place (which, let’s be honest, with their soccer mom-esk demanding style they practically did).

 

CISD Technology

Most of all, we will miss the school issued iPads and the dependable CISD wifi. Nothing furthered our education more than closing books, putting away paper and pencils and diving into a Thinglink assignment. My ability to access absolutely nothing on a daily basis brought a sense of calm into my stressful life and it brought me great joy to be incapable of completing assignments when my iPad randomly decided it had enough.

 

Follow Amelia @ameliavanyo