Getting Involved: Mackenzie Tate

Hastings Senior High offers multiple sports and activities for any high schooler who wants to be involved. Some kids choose one or two activities, but have you wondered what it would be like to do seven?

Hastings High senior Mackenzie Tate took on her seventh extracurricular activity this school year in preparation for college.

Tate’s latest addition to her list of activities is Key Club. She joined to earn more community service hours for college and because her friends in the club asked her to join.

“It felt very welcoming, and everything was very relaxed,” Tate said. “They make it feel like a friend’s gathering.”

Besides Key Club, Tate’s schedule consists of six other activities, some of which she has been doing for over a decade: church musicals (12–13 years), volleyball (11 years), bowling (seven years), show choir (five years), choir (four years), and school musicals (four years). 

“I’ve definitely thought about [quitting],” Tate said. “But with encouragement from my parents to be super involved, I stuck it out for 4 years.”

With volleyball season ending earlier this month, Tate immediately moved on to bowling as captain for a second year and to show choir as a first-time dance captain.

“Being captain is a bit stressful because I feel as if I can’t mess up,” Tate said. “But, it’s nice to be in that leadership position and have people looking up to me.”

Taking on many extracurriculars cut into the time she needed to study for college classes like AP Calculus, AP English 12, and Advanced Chemistry. Having a grade she was not satisfied with, Tate decided to drop her AP Calculus class to make more time for her interests and other activities.

“I am very conscious of my grades and base my mentality around them… I personally believe that I will not make it in life if I don’t have a good GPA,” Tate said.

Tate uses a digital calendar to help manage her activities. Despite trying to be organized, she still experiences struggles physically and mentally. With her job and activities in the evening, Tate claims to struggle with insomnia and finding time to sleep. 

“I feel like I’m in a slump, [and] I feel like I don’t perform to my highest potential,” Tate said.

Although Tate faces hardship, her involvement in various activities comes with rewards, including scholarship opportunities and chances to continue bowling or choir in college. But for Tate, the rewards are also the lasting memories, specifically when her team won a double-elimination round at state bowling her freshman year.

“We were all very nervous. This very loud team had gotten to us, and we lost one of our games,” Tate said. “We started cheering just as loud as them, having fun, and not caring when we made mistakes… My team had beaten them.”