Photo and Q&A by: Katelyn Ramsey
Homecoming nominations took place from Tuesday, Sept. 4 to Thursday, Sept. 6 after voting had to restart on Wednesday, Sept. 5. Nothmen News caught up with head of Queens Committee in Leadership, junior Kelli Reichert to talk about this year’s nomination process.
Northmen News: What did you plan to do to convince people to vote for homecoming nominations?
Kelli Reichert: We tried to advertise better. We tried to put letters on lockers with tape, but we ran out of tape, so we had to make the letters really small. We also tried potty paper, which is the advertisements they put in the stalls in the bathroom.
NN: Were there any changes from previous years?
KR: Not this year. We allowed a senior boy run the nominations table, because we couldn’t find any juniors that could get out of class. Next year, we’re thinking about cutting down the nominations to three because a lot of people just put down names they know to fill up the spaces.
NN: What’s the process for nominations?
KR: After we finish the nominations, we got to Edinger. There’s a spread sheet of all the senior girls and we tally up the votes by the names. After all the names have been tallied on one sheet, it gets thrown on the ground to avoid a miscount. The top eight get chosen, unless there’s a tie.
NN: Why are the queen candidates important?
KR: They’re supposed to represent Oak Park and respect the school, and other people respect them. A lot of people [that were nominated] you wouldn’t think would be nominated. It wasn’t just a popularity contest.
NN: How many people voted?
KR: 120, or a little less.
NN: How many people did you expect to vote?
KR: We only expected 80 or 90 people to actually vote.
NN: Why did you have to restart nominations?
KR: On the first day of nominations, the person who was in charge of the table at C lunch was misinformed. They just got someone from StuCo to work the table and there was a communication error. There were some false names like Johnny Appleseed, and the box was left unattended for a period of time. Some of the people who did vote didn’t get their names crossed off.