SA Campaign Coverage by Deja Semes
It’s the morning of Tuesday, January 28th and you’re mentally preparing yourself to give your speech to hundreds, if not thousands of underclassmen. Your palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy. You feel the audience’s eyes stab you and it feels as if your legs are melting. Your mind is racing a little too fast. “Remember your speech!” “Calm down!” This was the reality for our 8 candidates who courageously went up and gave their speeches. Are our future candidates ready to change and influence the ways of our school? Are we, the student body ready?
Sophomore Genna Fukumitsu was one of the youngest candidates and she was running for 1st Vice President. She has experience being in the Student Association since she was the student body president at her former middle school. “In middle school, I was student body president, so I would say that was way more work compared to now,” Fukumistsu states. She enjoys this council more than her previous councils due to all the friendships she’s made.
Junior Janea Ynah Pedro was also running for a Vice President spot and has been a part of the student association since her freshman year. A lot of things have changed since she joined. “Some things have occurred in the student section, and I’m so glad people enjoy that,” she expresses. She has built many bonds since joining the student association. “We did the spring door decorating contest and I think that was way better to build bonds because we had to work together as a CAP class.” Junior Pedro is very excited about the new up-and-coming changes that she is going to make.
Junior Jerijoe Aceret ran for President and has shared he also had leadership experience beginning on his first day of school here at Monalaua High School. Aceret ran for president during 8th grade and became the class president for his freshman year. It was a challenge for him freshman year because he was running against 5 people. “I made posters every week, I edited an entire video. It was hard but I had a lot of free time.” Junior Acere says. He had difficulties coming up when it came to being included in the student association. Though he did run unopposed during this campaign, he admits “The pressure is still on to do well, I still have to try a little.”
The stakes are high, but is the sense of competition overwhelming? Not exactly. These student council candidates have been bonding with each other, where they seem to consider each other as teammates and even friends. Everyone’s positive perspective and energy seems to match the rest. Despite that they all had experience in the student association, our candidates were still nervous but continued to have the courage, bravery, and confidence to speak to their underclassmen about why they deserve their votes.
Although the election results won’t be surprising, we can be confident that our future officers will be caring, kind, and hard-working. As for the rest of us, let’s be inspired and step up to the challenge of stepping out of our comfort zones and broadening our view of school by getting more involved.
Note: Student activities coordinator Mr. Neilson Ishida announced the final post-election results on February 10th via email. All candidates who spoke earned the spot they were running for, with Genna Fukumitsu (10) winning the 1st Vice President position, and Janea Ynah Pedro (11) winning 2nd Vice President position.
Moving Forward by Naomi Brown
As many realized during the assembly, all of our candidates were unopposed and not many of our students were running for the student association positions. As far as many teachers can recall, this is the first time this has happened.
As a student who has been here for three years, I’m a little disappointed that not many students got involved by running for a student association position. Over my three years here, I’ve heard multiple complaints and wishes from students that needed to be addressed but no one was willing to take formal action. I was even a little frustrated to see students have all the resources they need to make their high school experience enjoyable, yet no changes were being made. I understand and have witnessed the stress of addressing the problems we students have of making sure our school community a fun and welcoming place. The responsibility and workload that comes along with being in the Student Association, but after speaking with some of the candidates, it made me realize that being in Student Association can be a lot of fun and that what they do makes a huge impact on our school not only with creating fun school activities and events but also creating long-lasting memories.
Peter Block once said, “The only reliable leadership for transforming the community within our workplace is our own.” To me, that means that to make your high school experience exciting and tolerable, you have to be involved instead of letting someone else make changes for you. It doesn’t matter how big or small the event is or how popular or unpopular a club is, getting involved in any way you see fit can make a difference in how your high school experience will go. I know we have many intelligent, capable students who would do well in a leadership role, so I’d love to see more participants in our SA election season next year.
