In past years, class elections have been nasty, brutish, and short. Students would be given slips of paper in one of their classes and were told to put down the names of people who they thought fit to be class officers. In a few days, they would get another slip of paper with the top choices for officers and the students were then told to choose out of that list. The person with the most votes became President, the person with second highest would be Vice President, and those who fell behind those two were appointed Secretary or Treasurer. This year, however, Student Council has decided to change the way elections are done to give students an opportunity to actually campaign for their positions. Wednesday May 18, 2011 was the day students made their speeches to their respective classes.
During homeroom, students assembled into either the cafeteria, the Learning Center, the upper gym , or the theater for their class activities. The seniors, in the theater, talked about their class events as they had no elections. The Juniors, in the cafeteria, first heard from Mitch Stingl running for the position of president. Being the current Vice president, Stingl spoke of the events and fundraisers he had helped plan, as well as his various leadership seminars and experiences. Other candidates for officers included Deon Strapp, jasmine Thomas, and Alex Chu, among others. Sophomore Presidential candidate Kylie Hoegref expounded on her belief that the presidency “isn’t something to just put on a college application” and gave ideas for fundraisers and stressed the importance of communication. As Freshman presidential Candidate Jasvinder Singh stepped up to the speaking area in the upper gym, the crowd roared with cheers that lasted at least 30 seconds before he could speak. Singh stated that he wasn’t sure of what exactly he could do for the class of 2014, but was ready to do whatever necessary. Each time he proposed an idea the crowd cheered, almost as if the crowd not listening to his ideas. Rather, it seemed as though they were cheering because of who he was.
Not taking candidates seriously and candidates not taking the election seriously presented a problem for some students and it caused frustration for them. Senior Emily Myers who had been supervising the Junior speeches said that, “some were serious, they put in effort. Others took it as a joke.” Sophomore Zak Kartz had strong views as well, “they were horrible, I’m not going to vote for anyone.”

Waj Ali