2 minute read

2020: A Class Dismissed – Chance Walston

May 9, 2020

After attending Orono High School for three years, Chance Walston returned home to finish high school with his childhood friends at Machias Memorial High School. Then the coronavirus changed things. Chance discusses how the pandemic altered his expectations for senior year.

A photo of an empty classroom with overlayed text reading 2020: A class dismissed.

Born in the weeks and months after 9/11, and graduated in the year of a crippling pandemic, the Class of 2020 lived through some of the most profound change ever witnessed. These young adults missed out on cornerstone experiences that ease the transition from being a child to being an adult. We captured the stories of a class prematurely dismissed.

This video is part of the 2020: A Class Dismissed series. The Maine Monitor is speaking to seniors from as many Maine high schools as possible to tell the story of Maine’s Class of 2020 and how these soon-to-be graduates are dealing with the unexpected developments that come with a pandemic and a disrupted senior year. This video of Chance Walston was recorded on April 27.

Chance was interviewed on April 27, 2020. On that day, these were the top news stories in Maine:

Mills teases loosening of virus restrictions, but tells Maine to ‘stay the course’ (By Michael Shepherd & Jessica Piper of the Bangor Daily News)
State budget crisis looms in Maine as pandemic rages (By Scott Thistle of the Portland Press Herald)
8 confirmed cases of COVID-19 added in Maine, one new death (By Patty Wight of Maine Public)
Rush of new applications hobbles federal small business loan system (By Lori Valigra of the Bangor Daily News)
Maine nonprofits assess the costs of coronavirus response (By Megan Gray of the Portland Press Herald)
Bowdoin College expects to lose more than $8 million by the end of the semester (By Hannah LaClaire of the Times Record)
Maine prepares for possible second wave of coronavirus cases this fall (From WGME)
Man robs Shaw’s supermarket in Portland wearing face mask (By Dennis Hoey of the Portland Press Herald)

To view more of the day’s headlines, browse our collection of the state’s best coronavirus coverage.

Check out our interactive data dashboard to explore trends in Maine’s COVID-19 cases by county, age, sex of the afflicted individuals and more in charts updated daily with data from Maine’s CDC.

Bailey Beltramo

Bailey Beltramo is an emerging photographer who grew up in Canterbury, New Hampshire. He graduated with a degree in communications from Norwich University in 2017, and continued his education through the Professional Intensive program at the Rocky Mountain School of Photography. Both his photo and film work are pursued through a documentary approach and focus on capturing human experience in outdoor environments. His published work has spanned a range of settings from life on a dude ranch in Wyoming to the lessons of a non-profit, nature-based school in New Hampshire.