Several students gathered together this past April 1 to work together and beautify the school. Many improvements were made to the Memorial Garden, and other places around the school as a part of Athens’ annual Beautification Day.

“It’s very important to beautifying our school and making it someplace we’d all be happy to be in,” said Cooper Sykes, a ninth grader who helps organize the projects.

The Project helped create ‘Lucy’s Path to Leadership’ which is a shortcut from the library to the front office. It was built in memory of Lucy Shockley, a former  Parent Teacher Student Association (PTSA) president who died from cancer. The path was freshly mulched and new timbers were put in by the various students who participated during on the workday.

“We deserve to have a beautiful school. Not only for us. We have a public library, and we host visitors from other schools. We want to make sure that they feel welcome here and we want our school to reflect how wonderful it is here,”  said Sykes.

Another Project is the Memorial Garden, which has entrances from the library and Career Technical Education (CTE) hallway, is sponsored by  National Honors Society (NHS). It has memorial stones in honor of those associated with Athens Drive who died either while at Athens or shortly after. Most recently, groups worked on weeding, removing dead brush and freshly mulching the garden.

“It was incredible to honor everyone who died and show their families that they matter, and that they matter to our school,” said Sykes.

This year, the Spring Beautification day was held for NHS students, as well as participants from Service Raleigh, which is held through NC State University. The students gathered together to further improve the beautification projects.

“We want that memorial garden to be a space that honors those students and staff, and to be a nice place to go and be,” said Kerri Ann Ruthven, Media Specialist and NHS advisor.