My Childhood Memories Of Maitland Knutsen

I have known Madeline Slaughter since she was in eighth grade when she was asked to participate in marching band to fill an empty slot my freshman year. Since then I have always known her to be the type of person to always assist in whatever way possible. Our friendship started simply because she helped me laminate drill charts for marching band.

I have found my two very best of friends from softball, Madison and Bryce. They are like anchor. An anchor that keeps me sane. I can count on them to always have my back no matter what. We all met our freshmen year of highschool on

Have you ever had a person in your life you never thought you could be friends with, but you ended up being best friends? Picking a point in my life that I know impacted my life in just one choice was easy. For me, Joining Cannon Falls Weightlifting team, was not only very enjoyable, but it gave me the opportunity to become friends with my now two best friends. So many questions to how in just ten months we went from strangers to best friends.

“He was always a good friend of mind. He would always be there to talk to. He was someone you could have a deep conversation with,” she said.

Where’s the perfect place to meet a friend? For me, it’s in the Furrow Vineyards where the El Paso Gridley Invitational is held. The EPG meet was on a gray and rainy day in September last year. At the end of the race, I battled it out with a girl from Dee-Mack. Little did I know then, the girl that I just beat and I would become great friends all because of this race.

My friend Ellijah is one of the most outgoing, animated and hard-working friends I have met. He is the same age as I am. We have been extremely close friends since 6th grade, when my transfer from Farmington Schools to Lakeville Schools happened. Our friendship started in Middle School gym class, and still continues today. One of the first things we learned about each other was, we both lived between two houses growing up, and had many brothers and sisters along with step-parents. Joining a new school was something scary to me and a hard to do. Especially becoming new to the city of Lakeville. Ellijah was there to hang out and help me whenever I needed it. We are still close friends today! We attend the same Church group at Hosanna, play on the same football team, and get food with Tommy, Bryce, and Jack on the weekends at Chipotle.

Before I came to Baker Middle School, I attended elementary school in Laytonsville. I had a group of friends that consisted of five people, Olivia Fink, Olivia Pallas, Mason LeBlanc, Kody Johnson, and Stefan Jacob. The Olivia’s both attend this school alongside me, but sadly the other three attends a different school. I became friends with those three because we all had common interests in multiple categories such as cartoons and humor. I still keep in touch with them, but I know we aren’t as close as we used to be. With the Olivia’s we all became best friends in the first week of Kindergarten and we still have been by each other’s side since. We became friends because we all sat next to each other on our little chairs, and talked about anything

Tatum Lynn Syhlman, age 6, was my Best friend. Tatum would do things with me, like riding bikes, or sneaking out onto the roof of the house with me during the middle of the night in the summer, just to watch the stars. Then she would fall asleep and I would take her inside, and put her to bed. She was my other half, and she was my sister, and now she is gone, and has taken a part of me with her. A part that I will never get back. I regret any time that I was ever mean to her, and I love her so much, and I hope she knows that I will never stop thinking of her during any part of any day. She is always on my mind, and she always will be.

In the 17, almost 18 years that I’ve been alive, I have been extremely blessed in the fact that I’ve never lost a blood relative that was very close to me. However, I have lost a person that was especially close to my family and I. Terry Wayne Davis was a neighbor of mine all my life. Our families are extremely close to one another. I often hear people grieving about how they once lost a relative that they grew up with or someone who was in the family that meant the world to them. However, there are moments when I believe that you can be as close to a friend as a blood relative. That happened to be who Terry was to me. Terry played a significant role in my life because of three main reasons.

My best friend, Cami, was from a wealthy town that had a strong concentration of white Jewish families. Another person of which is an influential person in my life is my friend Pilar, an African-American girl that lives in a section of New York City and also went to boarding school in Vermont. A third member of our group was a boy named Lane, he lived right near the mountain and went to the local school. His family owned a farm in which he helped take care of and they were part of the lower-class. I can keep going on about everyone else but I believe you get the picture. The friends I had made were all different and the group of us were atypical of the stereotype of the ski world. None of that mattered, though, we were all best friends. Whom still visit each other during the offseason, even though we all live states away from each other. The perspectives and influences of everyone have rubbed off on everyone else and made us more aware of things outside of our own bubble. We all learn about the lives of the others, different lives than we ourselves have experienced. Shaping the next chapter in each others story as we go to live our lives without each other in the next coming years. Through the past years, I learned that no matter how different people are in wealth, race, and background a common interest and an open mind lets you see people for who they are inside. And with opening yourself to new relationships you open yourself to

Amelia Reiser is one of my best friends and I have known her since I was four and she was three. The Reisers normally live right outside of Philadelphia, but they have a farmhouse behind my house. We would play together as children, but we grew into our friendship, we were not close for a long time. Amelia was a happy-go-lucky child and was very energetic. I was a more serious child and would rather read a book then run around outside. It took awhile to mature and achieve a balance that both of us were happy with, but by the time I entered middle school we were very close, despite the distance. We would spend summers together usually at the farmhouse and she would also come up for weekends during the year.

While growing up I was enrolled in three different schools during High School. Freshman year I was enrolled in Lockhart, TX. I made some really good friends there. Sophomore Year my family and I moved back to Yoakum, TX. I was pretty much raised in Yoakum I have friends from kindergarten in that town. My godson lives in Yoakum. Before the end of Sophomore year, we moved to good ole Huntsville, TX. My fiancé and his family are from towns surrounding Huntsville. If it were not for social media, like Facebook, I would not be able to keep up with half the people I know.

We all have friends, but some are closer than others. For me, I have friends from all over like California, Sedalia, New Franklin, and Jefferson City because I went to school in all of these places. Pilot Grove is my favorite school though and I would like to thank all my friends that are here.

Around the age of 10, we started getting very involved with school sports. She lived in Byrdstown and found her gift which was cheering, of course mine was Basketball. As time went on, we only got to see each other at basketball games and special occasions. But, we always knew that we would be best friends forever.

Real friendship also needs honesty. That same year, Aggie and I become roommates. We got our first apartment together and became known around town as “The Girls” because one of us was never seen without the other.