Red, white and blue? More like blue, blue and blue when it comes to student body election season. Candidates run campaigns in hopes of winning, and students weigh out their options. With all the excellent potential officers, it’s important that students vote the week of February 24-28.

It’s tough competition this year, with many candidates who bring their unique backgrounds to the table. For President and Vice President, Bently Taulbert and David Gresty are running, as well as Sophia Sander and Madi Wells. For Secretary, Annabella Peterson and Leemu Masah. For Treasurer, Daly Rosenbloom and Kerian Knaak are both running. For Public Relations, Leah Beatty.

President and Vice President are both jobs that require people who are leaders in their communities and can handle stressful situations. 

“I just had always had a leadership spark in me, like I’ve always wanted to help people out, you know and fix problems,” said junior Bently Taulbert, President candidate.

This yearn to be a leader holds true in his running partner as well.

“I wanted to be VP because I like the jobs that are given to them. I really don’t think it matters what position I am, ultimately I am going to try my very best to make everyone’s high school experience the best it can be,” said junior David Gresty, VP Candidate.

Not only that, but being President and Vice President means people who want to make changes to better the lives of others.

“I think that this year has had really great leadership and really good events and we have a lot of changes and minor things that we can improve on,” said junior Sophia Sander, President candidate.

Each person’s goal as a student body leader, should be to better the school-life of their fellow peers.

“The changes I want to make next year is getting more kids who aren’t involved, involved,” said junior Madi Wells, VP candidate. “I want to go more in depth with what they’re doing this year and get kids who don’t find StuCo and everything appealing to want to do that and have the want to get more involved, to better their high school experience.”

The secretary is a job for the more organized, as they have to do things like take attendance at each meeting, lead their committee and lead any meetings the President and Vice President are unable to attend.

“I feel like I am a very organized person and very, like, task oriented and I have an eye for detail, so I feel like I could get things done very well, and keep them in track, plus I just really like working together with others,” said junior Kerian Knaak, Secretary candidate.

Other candidates also have goals and plans to better the way things are run.

“I think Callie did a great job this year, but I would change how we use the current points system we have in StuCo. I want to implement it into our election process and require a certain amount of points in student council to run for an officer position,” said junior Daly Rosenbloom, Secretary candidate. “I think that would ensure that future officers are responsible and involved members of Student Council.”

When people think of a Treasurer, money is the first thing that comes to mind. Yes, the Treasurer keeps track of the finances, but they also have to lead a committee along with the rest of the student body officers.

“You have to handle the money and make sure funds are going into the right places, you’re also in charge of your committee and making sure that you’re staying on task and getting everything that you’re supposed to get done, done,” said junior Annabella Peterson, Treasurer candidate.

No matter what position you are in, there’s always room for improvement.

“As Treasurer, I’d like to get a little more organization, because little hiccups we’ve run into this year is that some committees don’t keep track of what they buy and how much money they make off of some things, so I want to create a system where like everybody in Leadership can have access to, like, a Google Doc where we can better log what we purchase and stuff,” said junior Leemu Masah, Treasurer candidate.

Public relations deals with communicating with the students, as well as running a committee. This is the only position to be filled this year where there’s only one person running.

“I think this year they did a really good job on being able to work with communicating with the student body but I do think there can still be improvements. With communicating with the student body and making it more interesting, like we can incorporate broadcast aspects and multimedia aspects into it,” said junior Leah Beatty, Public Relations candidate.

The students believe they are ready for the jobs.

“A good leader is someone who listens to their people, a good leader is someone who can also take control or take charge and you know, make sure everyone’s busy,” said Sander. “A good leader communicates to people, a good leader cares- cares a lot and also sacrifices and is dedicated, they’ll do whatever it takes to get stuff done.”