Friday, September 8th, 2023: As the 3:30 dismissal bell rings the stampede of Magnet students race to their cars, but this time instead of fleeing the AMHS campus, the seniors prepare to get in their creative groove.

The annual parking spot painting is an important tradition for seniors as your parking spot will represent you for the remainder of your time at Magnet, so you have to make it count. After first getting designs approved by the administration, the seniors set off to begin the 2-3 day process of completing their parking spots. While everyone has a different method to their madness, I began by taping the edges of my spot to ensure clean lines and painting over the previous mural (sorry to the former owner of spot 142).

This was where I made my first mistake. Firstly, my parking spot was covered in dead leaves and I had to beg someone with a leafblower to clear my spot for me.

Secondly, in the rush of the morning, I forgot to bring a pole to attach to my roller and therefore had to resort to crawling on my hands and knees to paint my spot. Thankfully, the generosity of my fellow seniors showed as they donated some of their materials to help me.

One helpful tip for y’all in the coming years: you will ALWAYS need more paint than you think, especially if you are attempting to cover a spot that has dark paint. It took me an hour to cover the previously black background with my white paint. After working tirelessly in the 90-degree heat, the majority of the seniors, myself included, still had plenty of work to do…

On to day 2: Monday, September 11th, 2023. This day posed a conflict for most student-athletes as they were unable to miss practice. This introduced the plan of a 3rd painting date (date to be determined by admin). However, the rest of the painters finished up their artwork and added final touches to make sure their spots were perfect. Students left the campus proud of their finished masterpieces with no idea of the unavoidable catastrophe that was coming for their spots.

Then, tragedy struck. Mother Nature had some plans against the seniors that day as a severe thunderstorm warning around 5:15 p.m. rolled into North Charleston, just moments after the seniors left their finished spots to dry. For a solid hour it was a straight downpour on the Bonds-Wilson Campus, so heavy that those who were finishing practice at this time were advised to stay until the rain lightened up. However, I decided to brave the rain and drive home. During my sprint through the torrential downpour, I snapped some photos of the unfortunate fate that the parking spots met.

Now, there is a 3rd painting date that is yet to be announced, but in the meantime, many spots are left severely faded or unfinished. Once the parking spots are finally finished I will review and rank them, but until the opportunity to finish/retouch the spots, the creative spirits of the seniors are left unfulfilled. Stay tuned for parking spot rankings coming soon…