“With great power comes great responsibility.” This is a quote with which many are familiar from countless appearances in the Marvel movie franchise, but junior class president Kam Bailey used these words in his rousing speech at the Jr. Ring ceremony to describe the duties that the Class of 2023 is set to undertake.

Last Friday, after months of preparation for this event, the juniors finally received their class rings and unveiled their class banner, ushering in the class’s new status as the leaders of the school, taking up the torch of the graduating seniors.

“The reason why I decided to use that quote was because I felt like in a literal sense, it does take great power to have great responsibility, right?” said Bailey. “Being leaders of the school, it's not something easy to do. And with this power, we have to do something good with it. We have to serve the people around us. And the only way you can do that is with our authority.”

With the ceremony falling on the same day as the seniors’ last day of classes, these sentiments became particularly evident. At the very moment that the seniors wrapped up their time at SLUH, juniors were bestowed with their class rings, a symbol of their new roles here in the school community.

“I think it’s a great opportunity because really it’s the first time that all eyes are on the junior class,” said junior class coordinator Tracy Lyons, who was responsible for organizing the Jr. Ring ceremony and its associated events. “We are looking to you and this is this way to show that it’s not a scary, daunting thing. We are giving you this opportunity to show us what you’ve grown to be.”

The class banner, which each junior signed preceding the ring ceremony, featured the words ad astra per aspera, or “through hardships to the stars.” Surrounding the words on the banner was a constellation of bright stars over the Saint Louis skyline, designed by junior Alex Deiters.

“The motto symbolizes the junior class as a whole,” said junior Nick George, member of the motto and banner design committee. “Every one of us has faced our own hardships throughout the past three years, and this motto helps to show how we were able to keep pushing through those struggles.”

The ring ceremony was followed by the Junior Ring Dance, the first dance held exclusively for the Class of 2023. Held at Forest Park Visitor Center, the dance allowed the juniors to celebrate their class and the milestone that they had just achieved in a fun and exciting way.

“It was our class together for the first time,” said junior Diego Torrez. “It had the potential to be a bust. High odds, you know, but I think everybody came together, just feeling the music. It was time to party, relax, have fun. It was our day. Yeah, I think we really embraced that.”

Just like at any typical dance, the night included an amorphous mass of sweaty teenagers jumping up and down with an open circle in the center as confident or crazy individuals periodically threw themselves into the circle to show off their eccentric dance moves and jam out to classic party hits from the 2010’s.  

“I think my favorite part was when someone pushed me into the middle,” said junior Daniel Okohson-Reb. “I slid in and it was awesome. Everyone loved that.”

Though some students only jumped in once or twice for a brief moment, junior Cody Cox captivated the junior class for multiple songs at a time with his smooth, unshakable confidence and alluring dance moves.

“What I remember most clearly was being in the circle during ‘Pretty Boy Swag’ (Soulja Boy),” explained Cox. “There was a lot of masucline energy. I did a whole bunch of backbends and splits, and I ‘vogued.’ It was a moment.”

The exciting night concluded with live, impromptu performances from juniors Jason Cabra and Keller Anderson, who both have recently released their own music on streaming services. Cabra rapped his original “King,” and Anderson performed his soon-to-be-released single “Mistakes.”

“It was really cool to do it in a dance environment with most of our class,” said Anderson. “It was well over 200 people, so it was good prep for our upcoming show on May 20.”