Lindsay Zatta, after an afternoon spent pole vaulting under a hot late May sun, clutched a small, plastic, orange, miniature safety cone.

It’s a marker for her steps on the runway, but it’s also a totem, a good luck charm and a reminder — of where she started and where she’s going.

You can find many such items lined along the edges of the pole vault runway, this day a strip of well-maintained black at Pickerington North High School. Chalk, cones, figurines, Zip-loc bags and Tupperware containers were just a few lined up at different points.

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But this cone belongs to Zatta, who graduated from Athens High School on Saturday.