This year, Central experienced another highly engaging Student Council Elections week. Each group or candidate made a campaign advertisement and continued to campaign for votes through posters, speeches, candy, etc. This year, junior Bennett Seitz won President and his running mate, Caleb Kay, became the Vice President for Student Council. Their opponents during the election were Juniors Lizzie Rah and Avery Sorenson running together, as well as Emily Day who ran for the Presidency solo. All candidates spent hours working on their campaign and made the whole experience enjoyable for students to engage in and witness.
This is the second year that student council has made the Presidential elections a school wide election. Prior to last year, only student council members voted on the Presidential positions. This year, the candidates worked hard to win votes through posters throughout the school, passing out candy and doughnuts, creating campaign ads, and much more. However, all campaigns remained very distinct and different from their opponents’ campaign. Lizzie Rah touched on their campaign differences as she stated, “While the people we are running against just printed off things from the printer at school, we actually spent time and put thought into the posters we were making. It’s something we find fun.” Emily Day also touched on a focus of hers during campaigning as she explained, “I was getting criticized about not offering doughnuts or candy or stuff like that, but for me, I would rather have someone vote for me because they trust in my leadership rather than voting for me because I get them on a sugar high for an hour.
Each candidate had their own creative way of getting across to students and each took unique and thoughtful approaches. Seitz and Kay also had a different approach as well as Kay explained, “Our campaign was primarily focused on in person campaigning. We focused on getting face to face with students in every grade. Posters and videos will not have the same effect as face-to-face interactions, so we tried to talk to as many people as we could and convince them to vote for us.” As each candidate took a different approach to getting votes from students, the student body became much more engaged and involved in the election process through the diverse methods.
Now that the election is over, Central looks forward to next year’s election. As Seitz and Kay take on the executive positions for next year, they are beginning to prepare for next year as the leaders of student council. On this topic, Kay explained, “I think it would be great to come up with new ideas while still doing the best we can on traditional student council activities.” With new leadership and a new year, Central looks forward to the potential and excitement the next school year holds.
