This year, the prom theme was Fire & Ice. Tessa Otaigbe is a Senior at Mill Creek and won the title of prom queen this year. Tessa intentionally ran for prom queen by posting on social media and word of mouth from her friends, “I did run for prom queen and posted on my story, and my friends told people to vote for me too.”

Otaigbe has been at Mill Creek since her sophomore year and is a part of the African American Cultural Association Club here at Mill Creek, outside of school, she spends most of her time playing volleyball and working. Otaigbe has been playing volleyball since before her junior year and made the varsity team this year for her last season. She also played club volleyball at Atlanta Extreme as well.  “I wasn’t perfect during my junior year, but making varsity my senior year was a good experience. Club volleyball was fun too, it was just a lot of traveling for me.” She is currently taking AP Lang, AP Biology, and Government, with the rest of her classes being dual enrollment. Besides work, she loves helping people and is passionate about serving others. “I like volunteering a lot, I was a volunteer for the basketball team. But I like helping people in general.” Otaigbe’s dream school was Duke University, but she has decided to go to Kennesaw State in the fall and major in Nursing. She enjoys spending time with her friends and watching movies and shows at home. “I don’t have a favorite movie yet, but I like horror movies.” She is the youngest of three siblings, while her three older siblings are in college. “My oldest brother graduated from Georgia Tech and is in med school. My sister goes to Boston, and my other brother goes to Columbus State.”  Otaigbe added, “The best advice my parents have given me is to embrace my true self, and don’t let anyone change you for who you are.”

Otaigbe said that she enjoyed her senior prom more than her junior prom. “It was fun overall, I had a great experience for my senior prom. I went in a group with my friends, four guys and four girls. We all rode together, some went to Grayson’s prom, while the rest went to Mill Creek’s.” She advises freshmen at Mill Creek to “Actually do your work because it does matter. And make sure you have fun. Because school is not everything at the end of the day, you have to have a social life too.” Otaigbe also has advice for juniors going their first prom, “I would say to do everything in advance, and some things might not work out if you do things last minute. And if things don’t work out you might get stressed very badly, so I would say to plan.” She also says, “Senior year is the best for me, it’s been a good school year. But I would describe the senior year as fun and exciting, but a lot of studying.”