Since the lockdown last year, many students and teachers have experienced the disappointment of cancellations. Sports seasons have been cut short due to quarantines, gatherings postponed, and students have been sent into distance learning. Night out for Music is a popular event for the music department at Buffalo High School, and many have been asking whether or not it will take place this year, or what will be different.

Night Out for Music started as a fundraiser for the biennial trip that juniors and seniors in the music department. Over the years, the focus of the fundraising has shifted to covering costs for the entire department. The event itself has also expanded, including a gourmet dessert buffet and silent auction to accompany the concert put on by students.

This year, the Night Out for Music concert will be much different from what it was in the past. Because of COVID-19 restrictions and social distancing requirements, live concert attendance will be limited to the parents of the performers. Alternatively, the concert will be live-streamed online for those who still wish to view the student performance. In place of the silent auction, a website has been created that allows those who wish to support the department. This includes the ability to give one-time donations, a monthly donation, and even a specified donation to cover something such as a music stand or even a new instrument. Visit the website here if you are interested in learning more!

With all of these new changes being introduced, the question remains about what the future of Night out for Music will look like. Mrs. Vannet, an orchestra teacher at BHS, says that the Music Booster website will most likely stay up, and believes that the live-streaming option is likely to stay. Although many of these changes are hard to adjust to, the department is hopeful that concerts will return to normal by next year.

For sophomore Mason Baloun this new hobby was art. He began drawing to fend off boredom and to encourage his creativity.

“Around the second month [of quarantine] I was so low energy and depressed, I was craving to do something other than sitting around. I decided I wanted a change, so I promised myself that every day for the next year I am going to draw something, whether it be in my notebook or digitally on my computer.”

Baloun says that making a plan for learning drawing and creating artwork aided him in staying positive.

“I’m glad I found goals, and I’m ever so thankful for art because without either I wouldn’t be the optimistic me I am today.”

Although quarantine has been hard on our community mentally and socially, many students have found ways to rebound from the lockdown. What started as ways to pass the time has formed into hobbies and new interests for many and showed the incredible resilience of Buffalo High School Students.

If you want to see some of Mason Baloun’s artwork and animation projects, you can find him on his recently created Youtube Channel here.

William Besonen was a freshman at BHS last year when classes went online and found himself wishing that school would return to in-person learning. Besonen would have been an exchange student in Finland this year, but his exchange was canceled due to complications caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“When I’m at school I can focus on the class that I’m in and ask teachers questions,” Besonen said, “but at home when I could see my whole day’s worth of assignments it was easy to get overwhelmed and lose focus. I was missing social interactions that I normally would get at school.”

Besonen says that he really began noticing the effects of quarantine during the beginning of this school year, noting that it was easy to fall behind and lose motivation when he was learning

“This year really taught me the importance of face-to-face conversation and how much body language and facial expressions contribute to human connection,” Besonen said.

Besonen is one of many students that welcomes the shift back to in-person learning. However, many students have found that they enjoy certain elements of the distance learning model as well as in-person school.