Chattanoogan: After Reigning As GPS May Queen In July, Kshama Patel Enjoying UTK

At a time when most of the Girls Preparatory School seniors had a sense of anticipation with graduation minutes away, May queen Kshama Patel also felt a sense of relief with her likely biggest personal moment of the day behind her.  

It was all part of the crazy-but-meaningful end of school for her and the GPS seniors that, due to the coronavirus pandemic, featured May Day and graduation taking place in the same evening in late July.

But this commencement double-header was still special to Miss Patel and her classmates, and maybe even more so than it would normally have been, due to all the disruptions.

“They will never be able to forget about our class,” she proudly said in a video interview a few days after the July 23 event.

Miss Patel is now attending the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, and in some follow-up email correspondence this week, said she is enjoying college and has pledged Chi Omega sorority after going through the recruitment process.

“UTK is going great and I already love it so much,” she said.

As Miss Patel looked back on her time at GPS during the initial interview, she was quite aware that she as a May queen had been through a senior year unlike any other past queen.

It was, of course, unusual for everyone else, too.

The craziness started on Friday, March 13, after the students learned that would be their last day together for the immediate future due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Sensing the sudden end of GPS life as they knew it, she and fellow seniors tried to do the day justice. As president of the Class Leadership Council, she helped get breakfast treats from Julie Darling Donuts, the class members set up a loudspeaker on campus and enjoyed music, and they joined the tables during lunch so all the seniors could eat together.

They also did a mock May Day procession, and concluded the unusual day with the chapel program, where Haley Williford gave her senior talk and they sang “GPS, We Love, Extol Thee.”

“We tried to make the last day the best we could,” she said.

Miss Patel, whose first letter of her first name is silent when pronounced, said her first day as a GPS student was also enjoyable nearly six years earlier, as she remembered how other students made her feel welcome.

Just like last year’s May queen, Myra Brock, she did not start GPS in the sixth grade. She had moved with her parents, Mehul and Anandi Patel, to Chattanooga from San Francisco before her fifth-grade year, and she was encouraged to attend the Montessori School off McCallie Avenue for two years. But a teacher there had sent her two daughters to GPS and recommended the school to Miss Patel.

“It was just really weird to start in the seventh grade, but it was easy to make friends, and the teachers were really great,” she said, remembering that several faculty members also started new that year.

Among the teachers, she took a special liking to history teacher Callie Hamilton. “It’s just the way she teaches it,” she said of this faculty member who also wrote her college recommendation letter. “Everything makes so much sense. She cares about the material and is willing to help you.”

She also enjoyed all the close friends she had at GPS, including best friend Faith Copeland and the Class Leadership Council Miss Patel headed as councilwoman.

Back in December, all these great memories that had built up resulted in an emotional day when the senior May Court was selected by the seniors, and then a vote for May queen was held afterward among the student body.

It was a day during which Miss Patel was in tears, but happy ones as admittedly an emotional person. And it was just as much for the other classmates who were being selected.

She admitted she did not hear either Miss Copeland’s name called as the Maid of Honor or hers last as the May queen during the festive event full of clapping and cheering, But she did know how to react.

“We were all jumping up and down,” she said with excitement. “It was a good day. No matter who it was, we’d be jumping up and down.”

However, she added, “I was shocked to be the person.”

 

GPS defines a May queen and court as representative of the senior class in the highest sense and possessing such qualities as grace, friendliness, loyalty, active involvement, giving of their time and talents, and being full of character, integrity, respect and other admirable qualities.

 

Miss Patel said she did not feel any extra pressure after being selected as May queen, simply adding, “It’s just being there for the girls and doing what you do on a regular day.”

 

In February – with Miss Copeland with her – she went to All Dressed Up off Highway 153 in Hixson and picked out a May Day dress. She had some alterations done to it and was all excited, thinking about the day being “a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” she said.

She and her classmates would have that once-in-a-life experience, but in a different sort of way due to the once-a-century pandemic. The dress was placed in the back of her closet, and that is where she thought it might stay.

But it would indeed be front and center on the GPS campus. May Day and commencement took place after all, but at the unusual time of late July. No May Day dances by the underclass students were done, and just the seniors took part and processed across Smith Courtyard as families sat apart, but it was still meaningful.

Even the masks all the students had to wear could not hide her excitement she felt at getting to serve as May queen and be with her beloved classmates after not knowing if that day would come.

“It was all so surreal to be sitting there,” she said, adding that they quickly put on graduation robes over their May Day dresses before the commencement ceremony. “Thinking about how we got there, I still cannot believe it happened.”

In August, Miss Patel left for the University of Tennessee, where she plans to study biological sciences and look at becoming a pediatric dentist or doctor, although that could change. She is up there with 13 other GPS classmates, including Miss Copeland, who is her roommate in a newer dorm.

 

Miss Patel said some of the girls in her new sorority of Chi Omega are from GPS, and they along with the others have helped UT feel welcoming to her.

 

“The whole reason I wanted to go through recruitment was to find a sisterhood like I had at GPS. It is great to be a part of an organization that puts girls first and cares about each sister so deeply.”

 

She added that it has definitely been difficult going to college during the pandemic, but UT has put in measures to ensure students’ safety and that the students follow the guidelines.

 

“I am really grateful I ended up finding Chi Omega and UTK because they both feel like home,” she said.

 

Miss Patel and her former GPS classmates are also glad they are getting a second chance to reconnect as they meet new friends and branch out.

 

And Miss Patel’s May queen dress might get a second life as well somewhere down the road.

 

“Now I want it to be my wedding dress,” she said with a smile.

 

Jcshearer2@comcast.net