After exchanging letters throughout the school year and to keep a long-standing tradition alive, seniors will meet their JL Boren pen pals during a pep rally on Friday.

“I’m definitely excited to meet them,” senior Alyssa De la Rosa said. “I hope that he likes me once he sees me in person too.”

At the beginning of the year, seniors started writing letters to third and fourth-graders who go to JL Boren. Both parties decorated the letter to be sent.

“Most of the senior love it,” senior class secretary Madison Gracia said. “Just seeing what the Boren bears put is kind of cute.”

The pen pal program between Boren and Mansfield High has been a tradition for over 30 years. In previous years, seniors would only write to third-grade students, but because of an increase in seniors joining the exchange, fourth grade has been added.

“The teacher at Boren has been part of it since her very first year of teaching,” student council and senior sponsor Chrissy Boydstun said. “We tried one year to incorporate other elementary schools, but because Boren has done this for so long, they were so much more eager to be a part of it.”

During the pep rally, seniors are able to gift baskets to their pen pal.

“I’m really nervous because I want to make sure that my basket is to their liking,” De la Rosa said. “I want to be sure they enjoy their gifts.”

Boren students will take busses to MHS, and will perform a song during the pep rally.

“They do a little poem and they practice a song so they do a full performance for us,” Boydstun said. “Watching the seniors just kind of melt in front of ‘Wow they actually put effort into this. They care about us.’”

JL Boren is a feeder school to MHS, meaning most of the students will go to high school at MHS.

“You’ll watch third graders walk into the gym and they’re so excited to be at the school they’ll go to someday,” Boydstun said. “You’ll hear so many seniors go ‘I remember being that third grader.’”