Back to life: Curbed by COVID last year, prom festivities return for McHi seniors

The pandemic abated just in time for McAllen High School seniors to add one last pre-graduation memory to their final year in high school: prom. 

Across the country, last year’s seniors tucked away prom dresses in closets, unused, and never had the chance to hit the dance floor. The prom this year’s McHi seniors attended didn’t look so different than any pre-pandemic prom.

Held under the shining stars and bare bulb lights at Quinta Mazatlán on May 15, just days after the CDC nixed its mask requirement for fully vaccinated people, the evening held all the hallmarks of an old fashioned prom: dresses and corsages, laughter and embraces, a prom king with no mask to cover up his smile.

There weren’t many masks in general, but there was one last visage of the pandemic in the form of a sash; it read: “Most likely to fall asleep on Zoom.”