Senior tiles. They mean something different to every student. Whether it’s their personality or one of their accomplishments, seniors decorate them with a variety of different things. To senior Jared Ireland, his tile represents the bond between him and 15 of his close friends.

Jared’s tile depicts the letters “BGOLa��, which stands for “Better Group of Ladsa��, and all of the friends’ nicknames on it. The idea for the tile spawned from the group chat containing both soccer and other friends.

Jared has known some of the people in the group since he was young, meeting them through playing on the same soccer team together.

“A lot of us have been playing soccer together since we were little kids,” Jared said. “[We built] the relationship up through that, and it brought us all together.”

Their friendship with each other has lasted many years and expanded to many of the other players on the team. Jared tries to include as many people as he can and extends his friendship to everyone.

He and his friends hang out after every practice and have formed a bond not many other teams have. Although Jared is a part of a travel team, he says that this one is more fun to play on simply because of the guys that are on it.

“[It’s so special] because none of us talk behind each other’s backs,” Jared said. “We do make fun of each other a lot, but we all know it’s a joke. We laugh it off, which is really cool because that could really hurt a relationship.”

The bond between the lads started to cement with the creation of an off-season soccer team called “FC Flame.” It was created as a spin-off of the team “FC Fost” as a form of competition. Here, the group of friends were able to strengthen their relationship through friendly games of soccer.

“I wasn’t really friends with [guys on the soccer team] until last year’s soccer season,” Jared said. “We’d always do team dinners and just get to know [the team members]. We started hanging out afterward a lot and became really good buddies.”

Like Jared, senior Hannah Kuhlmann also wanted to paint a senior tile with an inside phrase, but this time with a Spanish twist.

“My tile says, ‘Ya tu sabes’ which means ‘You already know’ in Spanish,” Hannah said. “My friend [senior Hailey Jansen] and I say that to each other all the time so we decided to put it on a tile.”

The inspiration for the phrase lies behind simple comic relief. The saying “Ya tu sabes” was comical to the girls in English, but once it was translated into Spanish, it was even better.

For Hannah, Spanish planted a seed of friendship inside a classroom.

“Our friendship is based off of Spanish,” Hannah said. “We’ve had classes before Spanish, but we never really connected. We’ve had Spanish for the past three years and have been friends ever since that.”

It wasn’t being in a class with Hailey that brought them closer together, but rather the struggle of the class.

“I think it was being in a classroom where you have to speak Spanish,” Hannah said. “It brings you closer because you’re all struggling.”

Hannah is now in AP Spanish, a class not many students end up taking because of its challenging curriculum. Because of this, the class size dwindles, and the people inside the class become closer friends.

Although this was an inside joke between Hannah and Hailey, it was a last minute decision to put it on a tile.

“When we were at the Senior Retreat, we were in a rush to figure out what to do, and [“Ya tu sabesa��] was the first thing that came to our minds,” Hannah said.

But unlike Hannah and Jared, there was no planning or inside joke behind senior Nolan Block’s tile.

“[The tile] really didn’t have any meaning behind it,” Nolan said. “We just sat there and [friend and senior Tony Moceri] said, “Let’s make a Guy Fieri tile. This is our last year in “flavortown,”so we did.”

Guy Fieri is a restaurant owner and food lover. He has hosted multiple shows including Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives. “Flavortowna�� is a slogan coined by Fieri himself simply meaning the place where appetizing food lies.

The tile depicts Fieri’s face on a black background covering four tiles. At the top of the tile it says “last year,” and on the bottom, “flavortown.”

“It was just kind of a comedy look,” Nolan said. “It wasn’t really taken too seriously; I was just having fun with my friends.”

Nolan made the tile with three other guys: seniors Charlie Soucey, Steve Reminga, and Tony Mocceri. The tile doesn’t actually represent any part of their friendship, other than the guys all being equally impromptu.

“I would say we’re kind of a spontaneous group of people,” Nolan said. “When we find something funny, we just kind of run with it. We don’t really worry too much about outside perspective or what the consequences might be.”

In addition to the comic relief aspect, the tile was also chosen for the individuality. Some of the more meaningful tiles had already been painted by other closer friends, so that left the group with the extempore decision to paint Guy Fieri.

For many seniors, their tile represents the legacy that will live on in this school. For Nolan, Hannah, and Jared, they represent the friendships they made with the people along the way.

“We’ve helped each other through a lot of stuff in our lives, and you can’t just forget about a friendship like that,” Hannah said. “Hailey and I will definitely stay in touch.”