Dances, events, fundraisers, and school spirit. To most, these are just something to look forward to throughout the school year. However, this feature begs the question, who is responsible for these? How did they get there? 

Class Officers here at Rogers serve as the backbone to the student body, not only providing leadership, support, and spirit, but as well as planning and hosting events for our school.

This year, the process of running for office began with attending a meeting with the bookkeeper Vanessa Neeley, during lunch, where you are introduced to a packet. 

Inside this packet, candidates find instructions, several pages of requirements, such as grade report, GPA, teacher recommendations, and questions to fill out, where answers are expected to be long and thorough. 

“My least favorite part of the entire process was just filling out all the paperwork,” said Jayden Rottinghaus, a sophomore running to be the junior class spirit leader. She felt that most of the tasks given were a bit unnecessary. “There was at least five forms we had to fill out and tons of questions to even apply to run.” 

After the packet has been completed, it is then up to the candidate to create multiple copies of a rough draft of their speech, and begin advertising for themselves and their campaign, whether this be through social media, or by spreading flyers throughout the school. 

As the day of the speech’s approaches, candidates are told their speech must be able to be completed in a minute or less, which for many, was challenging. 

Junior class secretary/treasurer candidate Launah Has said, “I think the most difficult part was trying to fit my speech into the one-minute time limit, I had a lot of ideas I wanted to share and so many more things I would’ve liked to say. I found it hard trying to sort of pick and choose what points to make.”  

Regarding what actually goes into the speech, students are suggested to share what makes them a good candidate for the position and their most prominent idea(s) for next year’s class. 

“I wanted to run for class officer so I could give more recognition to extracurriculars, establish other clubs, and initiate fun events. Activities like orchestra, Asian Americans culture club, BSU and GSA, I believe should be more valued and promoted to provide inclusion and diversity amongst students at Rogers,” said Has, in a rough draft of her speech. 

As far as preparations for the speech goes, candidates are expected to have memorized and practiced basically on their own, as there is only two days given of scheduled practice time with other candidates inside the PAC. 

“As soon as I had my speech finalized, I started memorizing it so I could have an understanding and feel comfortable while speaking. Then I practiced in front of a mirror to ensure that my posture was correct and figure out what I wanted to do with my hands and making sure I look engaged and confident while speaking. Then I practiced in the PAC with the other candidates, first without a mic, then with one,” Has said. 

While some of the process could be labeled as tedious, candidates recall really enjoying most parts that went into running. Whether this was through having the opportunity to voice your opinions and ideas to a large group, or simply getting to know the others who are running. 

“I really enjoyed getting to meet the other candidates. I have seen some of them around school before but have never really talked to them or got to know them like how I was able to through running. It was like trauma bonding when we were all nervous the day of our speeches,” Rottinghaus said. 

After voting had concluded, Has and Rottinghaus summarized the entire process as slightly nerve wracking but also extremely exciting, and both are looking forward to being your new junior class secretary/treasurer and spirit leader, with big plans for making it great year.