It’s 5:30 a.m.

The sun hasn’t yet risen. In fact, it won’t rise until over an hour into the long commute to school.

Sleepy, groggy, exhausted.

Week after week after week.

Many would shirk at this responsibility of waking up extra early just to attend a school — perhaps opting instead for a local public alternative.

St. Mark’s has the privilege of accommodating students from all across the DFW metroplex. Some students — who live in area suburbs like Waxahachie, McKinney and Coppell — are required to brave the trek regularly.

Senior Jackson Barnes, who lives 30 miles away in Prosper, chooses to make the 50-minute drive every day despite the difficulty.

“Driving to the school itself is a real struggle,” Barnes said. “When I get to school, I’m always super tired but you manage it after a while. As the school week goes on, I usually get more adjusted (to the drive).”

Unfortunately, school is not the only challenge posed by the distance. Because most students live much closer than Barnes, he has also made friends with other students in his local community.

“I live (extremely far), so I have a lot of friends at my old school who live in my   neighborhood,” Barnes said.

This problem is not unique to students.

Biology instructor Mark Adame, who lives 25 miles away in Flower Mound, also commutes to school for around 45 minutes each day. The timing has forced him to adjust to the inherent struggle of waking up earlier in the morning.

“I would usually get up around 6 a.m. very tired,” Adame said. “Now, my body has changed, and I always get up a little bit before 5 a.m. I can’t even sleep in on the weekends if I want to. I just get up at the same time.”

These habits and routines are sometimes beneficial for his own health.

“(Waking up earlier) helps program my body,” Adame said. “But that means I’ll have to force myself to go to bed by no later than 10.”

After making this drive for over 15 years, Adame has found a creative solution to manage the distance.

“I’ll drive my truck and leave my bike here, and then I’ll ride my bike home,” Adame said. “In the mornings, my wife will drop me off on her way to work.”

Although Adame and Barnes have adapted to longer commutes to school, Adame is looking for a long-term solution — driving to community events on campus is too inconvenient.

“We’ve been actively looking for a place, possibly for rent, over the past couple of months that’s closer to school,” Adame said.

But there is one caveat. Through a connected community, living farther away from school doesn’t mean families are excluded or ignored. In some situations, the positive aspects of community help balance and even outweigh a longer commute.

“While students are on one hand challenged geographically, on the other hand, (the distance) allows for cultivation of relationships with other families that are closer to St. Mark’s,” Director of Student Recruitment Korey Mack ’00 said. “So while on one hand, it is a challenge, I also think it reveals the close-knit relationships that a place like St. Mark’s can foster.

And for those families that live farther out — often there’s this collaboration with other families that otherwise wouldn’t occur.”

Mack himself used to live in Oak Cliff, around 15 miles from campus. To combat traffic, he would wake up earlier and arrive over an hour before school started.

“I used to get to school at about 7 a.m. every morning when the school day started at 8 a.m.,” Mack said. “I could always go to the library or the Commons and go do my homework there.”

Mack would also find alternatives to making the full drive back home; the sheer distance allowed him to deepen his relationships with friends who lived near school.

“I spent a lot of time at my best friend’s house,” Mack said. “Instead of going all the way home, I would go hang out with him after school and then go to the football game.”

Hours spent driving to and from school can be a struggle, but students and families are never alone.

“I think it strengthens the community to have members from all different places in our metroplex,” Mack said. “That richness and experience are extremely valuable; those environmental factors may change someone’s perspective if he lives 30 minutes west of St. Mark’s, maybe different than a student who lives 30 minutes east of St. Mark’s.”