by Audrey Payne | copy editor
Class officers are the leaders of the grade. They get official titles, do community service, and plan school events for the rest of the students. The sophomore class only has two of those leaders this year.
“There are only two of us, me and a girl named Diana Jones… It’s just pretty surprising that we’re the only two people. I guess it’s because we’re the only people that signed up,” sophomore class vice-president Micaela Murphy said.
The sophomore class officers are in charge of selling shirts for the class of 2017, along with other activities.
“Most of our activities are at the beginning, we sell shirts for our class, class of whatever year it is, and we make those over the summer and sell them at the beginning and throughout the year,” sophomore class sponsor and English teacher Julia Whitfield said. “Later on in the year, we’ll help the upperclassmen with different things, different activities they do as well. Like the Powderpuff football game, we help sell football tickets for that, and we can help with prom if the junior class needs help with that.”
There are only two sophomore class officers this year, a president and a vice-president, because only two people applied for class officer positions. Jones believes that very few people applied because there was a lack of awareness about the positions.
“I think, also last year too, because I was president last year too, I just think it didn’t get out, the word didn’t get out. No one really knew about it. I told my friends after the fact, and they were all like, ‘What?’, and they tried to get in, and I always think, like, you have to go and search for those opportunities,” sophomore class president Diana Jones said.
Despite the small number of people knowing about sophomore class officers, Whitfield explained that many more students know about and apply for junior and senior class officer positions.
“The juniors and seniors, since they have so many duties, I think a lot of students know ahead of time that those class officers exist and they do a lot of things, but since freshmen and sophomores not as much, maybe they haven’t heard that those exist,” Whitfield said.
Murphy believes having more sophomore class officers would increase the opportunities for the class officer team.
“I do believe that if there were more of us, there would be more pressure to do something more than just selling T-shirts, although that is fun, and it gives us more free rein to relax throughout the rest of year, it would be pretty cool to do something other than that,” Murphy said.
Leadership like being a class officer provides individual benefits in the long run, according to Whitfield.
“I think it looks really good on your college applications, right, on your resume, stuff like that, helps with responsibility,” Whitfield said. “If you’re interested in that kind of position, then it would be good to do, I think.”
Jones recommends getting a leadership position or becoming involved within the school community.
“It’s just a cool experience. I really recommend getting involved in stuff,” Jones said. “And even though we should be more vocal, we’re trying to work on that, there’s opportunities everywhere and you just have to keep your eye open, you know, just look at a random poster on the wall.”
