Wylie High School seniors gathered before the first bell - and before most alarm clocks should reasonably be ringing - to begin their final year together.

The sun had not yet climbed above Hugh Sandifer Stadium, but the senior parking lot was already awake.

Students pulled into their freshly painted parking spaces, unfolded lawn chairs, fired up grills for breakfast and gathered with friends for photos. It looked a little like a football tailgate, only quieter, sleepier and with considerably more cinnamon rolls.

Senior Sunrise is still a young Wylie High School tradition, beginning only about four years ago. But for seniors like Eden Wright and Ady Williams, the meaning behind it is already becoming clear.

Eden's alarm went off at 5:30 a.m. She admitted she was tired, but said being there with friends made the early wake-up worthwhile.

"It's kind of unreal," Eden said of finally beginning senior year. She sees the morning as one bookend of what's ahead. Senior Sunrise starts the year, and Senior Sunset will eventually close it.

"It's kind of like the starting of your last ride," she said.

Ady Williams started even earlier, waking around 5:10. By the time she was interviewed, she rated her level of awake a solid two out of 10. Her survival strategy included donuts, cinnamon rolls and food - a respectable senior-year breakfast plan.

What surprised Ady most was how many classmates showed up.

"I didn't think much of anybody would show up," she said. Instead, she found different groups of friends gathering together, taking pictures and simply enjoying being in the same place.

"I think it was so incredibly fun how everyone was there and we all got to come together and see each other," Ady said.

As the sky brightened above the stadium, the morning became a fitting picture of what Senior Sunrise represents. The students may have arrived half-awake, but gradually the reality of senior year was beginning to sink in.

For Ady, the part she already knows she will miss isn't necessarily a class, event or building.

It's the people.

"I love waking up every day and seeing friends and seeing the teachers and seeing old friends and old teachers," she said. "I'll probably miss the people, the memories."

There will be football games, competitions, senior privileges, plenty of pictures and, eventually, graduation. Eden hopes that when Senior Sunset arrives, she'll be able to look back and say the year was "very fun and memorable" - and that it didn't go by too fast.

But on this morning, sunset could wait.

There were friends in lawn chairs, breakfast on the grill and a West Texas sunrise spilling over Hugh Sandifer Stadium, illuminating a senior class with one full year still ahead of them.

Not a bad way to begin the last ride.

See a short video of their sunrise

It's great to be a Wylie Bulldog.