Mehlville Senior Preserves Time

By Marlee Cox

With the trials of an everyday high school existence—homework, drama with friends and teachers, the never-ceasing GPA battle—it can be hard to remember that these are the times we’ll one day look back on with a slightly ironic kind of nostalgia.

We will show our children pictures, enduring their taunts about our hair and clothes, secretly wishing we could go back to those moments of teenage invincibility.

Senior Amy Bush knows a thing or two about memories. As editor-in-chief of the Mehlville Reflector, the school's yearbook, she and her staff work tirelessly to create and record memories. Bush rose to the top position after one year of experience as a team leader (the yearbook staff is broken up into teams; each team is responsible for a certain number of page spreads), and has proved herself more than capable of embodying the leadership role.  

“I definitely love seeing a spread when it’s empty,” Bush said.  “And then, when you finally see the end result, it’s like this is real. People will see that.”

Indeed, they will—now, and for years after. A yearbook preserves something raw and candid about the high school experience. It displays the moments of school victory and unity while gently reminding readers that they once stayed awake until 2 a.m. to write an English essay after weeks of procrastination.

“You can look back and see how it was,” Bush said. “All of it.”

As an involved member of the high school's community, Bush may glimpse more than one image of herself in the yearbook she works every day to produce.

“It’s been quite an experience,” she said when asked about her own favorite memories as a Panther. “Just all the people I’ve met, the teachers, the experiences."

Bush is involved in activities beyond Mehlville as well. For the past five years of her life, she has been deeply involved in Job’s Daughters, a religious organization and Freemason fraternity for girls from ages 10-20. The daughters have three levels of authority, as related to region, and Bush has held leadership positions on all three levels. Additionally, she has competed in pageants with this organization, winning the title of Junior Miss Missouri Job’s Daughter and even missing her senior-year homecoming dance for the Miss Missouri Congeniality pageant.

As is understandable for someone who spends so much time relishing the present and memorializing the past, Bush’s plans after high school remain undecided.

“I found this (quote) a few days ago,” Bush said. “It’s Abraham Lincoln—‘The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time.’ I love that.”

Along with the wisdom of Honest Abe, Bush is comfortable with spouting her own philosophy.

“You definitely have to believe in yourself… If you do, and you know what you’re doing, you’ll go so far,” she said.