The senior class at Athens Bible School will hold its annual auction Friday to raise money for the senior class trip. The Rolling Lovell auditorium at 507 Hoffman St. will house both a silent auction, which lasts from 5:30-8:30 p.m., and a live auction, which will starts at 7:15 p.m. The event is open to the public.

Seniors from ABS have been busy canvassing local businesses for donations since the beginning of summer and have collected an impressive list of auction items including jewelry, a three-night stay at a cabin in the Smokey Mountains, tickets to a Huntsville Havoc hockey game, gift baskets and gift cards from dozens of local businesses.

Proceeds from the auction are evenly divided between the seniors who volunteered their time to making the auction a reality. This year, 20 of the 22 graduating seniors will be going on the senior trip along with 46 adults in two separate chartered buses. In previous years, students earned an average of $200 toward the cost of their trip.

This year’s 10-day exhibition up the eastern seaboard will cost a little more than $1,000 per student.

“Which is a steal if you look at all the things are kids are going to get to do,” Gayle Hagewood, who has served as a chaperone in the past and works at the school’s administrative assistant, said. “All these kids have to do is take their food money and have fun. Everything is taken care of for them.”

A few of the highlights on this year’s itinerary include stops at Thomas Jefferson’s home at Monticello, a Gettysburg battlefield tour, a tour of the breakers in Newport, Rhode Island, lunch at Trump Tower in New York City, a couple of broadway shows, and a behind-the-scenes tour at the Capitol in Washington D.C. led by U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks and his wife, Martha. Four students from the senior class will also be selected to lay a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Solder. A stop in Boston and a final stop in Baltimore where the students will attend a worship service on the Sunday before their long bus ride home round out the list.

Senior class president Will Suggs, who is also Vice President of the student body government, is most excited about touring the government buildings in the country’s capital.

“It will be cool to tie together how we do things in our student body government and how they do things in DC, to see what things are alike and what things are different,” Suggs, who has attended ABS since kindergarten, said.

He will be busy the night of the auction keeping everything organized and running smoothly. He’s also part of the clean-up crew.

A fall festival sponsored by the school will be taking place at the same time as the auction in the ABS gymnasium. Starting in 7th grade, students who volunteer at the festival get to save up the proceeds they earn from concessions and ticket sales in an account they will one day use for their own senior trip.