Seniors fly away, leaving a legacy

Rodgers: ‘I think we are still friends because we just happen to dislike each other a bit less than we do everybody else’

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Photo courtesy of Dylan Rodgers

(Left to right) Seniors Ethan Martin, Aiden Glikkman, Dylan Rodgers and Ben Fuller dressed in green for their last rally at Oak Park High School.

Seniors Aiden Glikkman, Ethan Martin, Ben Fuller and Dylan Rodgers are, as some would describe, “icons” of the senior class of 2019.

Over these past four years, this boy group was responsible for each rally’s annual lip sync battles.

“My favorite lip sync we’ve done has to be ‘Before He Cheats.’ Going up in front of everybody and destroying a toy car with baseball bats is one of my favorite things we’ve done and will live on in Oak Park history,” Fuller wrote to the Talon.

They also brought laughter through their commentary at sports games. At the last Stunt game they commentated at, they played “All I Want For Christmas Is You” by Mariah Carey on repeat.

“Sophomore year we started to announce for the OP Stunt Team. It was there where we began to master our skills,” Glikkman wrote to the Talon. “Gotta’ rep our OP Stunt. Stunt rocks and we have a blast pretending like we know what we’re talking about.”

The four have declared their “spirit animals”: Gilkkman is the lion, Rodgers is the bird, Martin is the kangaroo and Fuller is the chimpanzee.

Glikkman wrote that he would like “our jerseys retired somewhere on campus.”

“I hope I left a good mark on OPHS and that there will be others to follow in our footsteps someday, but I doubt any people will live up to our performance the past 4 years. I, and I believe the rest of the boys, expect to be immortalized in the form of statues on the OPHS campus at some point in the near future,” Rodgers wrote to the Talon.

Two teachers on this campus that have gotten close with these four over these past years are geography and psychology teacher Kimberlee Galbreath and math teacher Lauren Heinrich.

“They all just started hanging out in my room since sophomore year. We just became friends,” Galbreath said. “They’re funny and they keep us entertained.”

Heinrich referred to them as “genuine and very true to themselves.”

All four were joint creators of Lettuce Club, a new club on campus this school year, which received the largest number of student sign-ups this past fall at club rush in October.

Their favorite movie to watch together is “Spider-Man 3” and they go to Cronies every Friday — a tradition that started two years ago. They also said they like to sing and dance.

“We are all still friends because we enjoy each others company. For some reason we just all fit well together,” Martin wrote to the Talon. “I hope we leave a good example of what the perfect friend group is.”

“These traditions have shown me how awesome high school can be, and [how] much fun a group of good friends can make it fun,” Martin wrote.