Meet the notable and longtime Bulldog senior, Olivia Menz. Menz has attended Lakeview since Kindergarten with proudly supporting what Lakeview stands for. Through her thirteen years at Lakeview, she has been an avid participant in clubs such as GSA and Assemble for Change. Significantly, you could also often find Menz performing in the school plays with her interest in drama or singing with the choir as she was a student in Madrigals and Pop A Capella. With her passion for performing and participating, Menz says that “anytime we did our plays was always a good day” at school.

With an optimistic attitude, Menz luckily said “I would say that senior year has gone like I planned, even though I didn’t really plan it going a certain way. I was excited to get involved in more clubs and to do more my senior year. It has been less fun sometimes though, because it’s going by fast and I’m sad to graduate.”

While reflecting on her past four years in high school, Menz says “I am proud that I got out of my comfort zone and had more social experiences/opportunities” as she has improved at socializing and becoming more comfortable in social situations along with being challenged with social anxiety and feeling comfortable in her own skin. With working to overcome these challenges, Menz will never forget the day that Lakeview junior Clover, said to her in choir, “you’ve gotten sassier this year” which was something I needed to hear. That moment will stick with me because it made me feel like my efforts were being seen. Everyone in drama has impacted my life because we made memories I will always remember and cherish.”

With many great days and experiences at Lakeview High School, her favorite year is senior year. When describing what made senior year stand out to her, she said, “everything about it has been great, except for the sentimental emotions I feel. My choir classes are fun and drama has been really great with so many new people. I also have a pretty chill day since I only have three core classes.”

Through her education at Lakeview, her hardest class for her personally was Math, but thrived with English being her strength as she enjoyed writing assignments. With her prioritization of education and passion, Menz has had many encounters and impacts from people that will last a lifetime. When considering who had the biggest impact on her high school career, she could not just choose one out of many positive encounters. Menz said “Mrs. Mullins has brought fun energy and new ideas to the choir department. Mr. Purdum has helped me become more confident on stage. Mr. Shanhower has made math slightly more bearable and I enjoyed his class, despite the fact I hate math. Mr. Ruane, even though he acted like he doesn’t like people, is actually really funny and has made Physiology and GI a good class.”

With the class of 2023 the corona virus altered and fully changed their freshman year. Thankfully, senior year is the first completely normal high school year 2023 seniors will experience. With this, Menz said that she “will never forget the moment that school got canceled due to the outbreak of the Coronavirus”. 

If Menz could change anything about her time in high school, she would change the time of online school during covid and if given the chance, she would take a do-over for her freshman and sophomore years. 

In retrospect, Menz says that she would tell her freshman self “ to enjoy high school and get involved more, because it does go by too fast”. Similar to what she would tell her younger self, she also advises underclassmen to “enjoy high school and go to all the fun high school events while you can.”

 Menz strives to always do her best, she can recall her parents always encouraging her throughout. With her great efforts in high school, she can say that her part time job overwhelmed her the most in high school as she says that “this [was] the first school year I have had a job, and sometimes it gets overwhelming trying to handle school and work, and also remembering what events that I have to request off for.” Despite the overwhelming times she faced, she always found a way to make it work and enjoy high school. She will always remember Lakeview’s Prom as being one of the best memorable social events she went to during her years at Lakeview High School. 

As Menz nervously comes closer to graduating high school she can confidently say that “I think Lakeview has helped give me the social skills to go out into the world and meet people at college.” As she approaches the next steps in her life, she will undoubtedly miss being a part of the drama department the most at Lakeview High School.

Menz has applied to colleges such as Youngstown State University and Kent State University. With earning acceptance to both, she narrowed her choice down to Kent State University. Furthermore, she is still deciding on whether to attend Kent’s main campus, or Kent Trumbull but has decided to major in advertising. With this decision, Menz says that “to be honest, the thing that convinced me to do advertising was watching advertisements shown on tv. I saw certain characters from my favorite tv shows who were in that field and I thought their jobs sounded cool.” With these exciting plans, Menz sees herself in five years having great friends that she made in college, and also having a stable career.

Senior Menz has undoubtedly left a lasting impact on the Lakeview community, Lakeview choir’s, and the Lakeview Drama Department through her kindness and efforts made. As Menz takes the next steps in her life after graduation, the Bulldogs wish her the best of luck and success!