Holy freak, when did junior high elections become a high stakes, frenzied production of videos, speeches and my favorite, the carnival wrist band? I remember school elections being a popularity contest where you felt cool if you were asked to carry a campaign sign between classes. Long gone are those days. Now, you really have to campaign. It's a multi-step process: first you have to get names on a petition supporting your right to become a candidate; second comes the awfully complex process of deciding on a campaign slogan- the all-important mantra that will grace your posters, campaign t-shirts (only 2 shirts, one for the candidate and the other for the "campaign manager") and wristbands (The kids are not allowed to hand out any "bribes" like candy, so instead they can give out carnival wrist bands with your slogan emblazon on with black sharpie). Tay's slogan was all about Facebook: "Update Your Status- Vote Cella for 9th Grade Officer!! Then there's primary elections. Because there were 9 candidates for the 3 ninth grade offices, they decided at the last minute to cancel primaries, which was both good and bad. It was good because all the students running got an opportunity to move on to the finals, but bad because it made the election process from start to finish almost 4 weeks long. The week of Spring
Break was spent filming the 3 minute election video, and writing the election speech. Then it was one more agonizing week of campaigning before Taylor was finally able to give her speech and video at the election assembly last Friday. The assembly was a mess. Every year they have horrible technological issues. This year was worse than most. I felt so bad for the kids running for 8th grade officers; their videos were first and so the teachers had to work out all the computer glitches on their videos. It took an hour longer than anticipated, and by the time they were finished I think the kids were just sick of the whole thing. Then they still had the SBO & 9th grade electorates to go. Tay decided to run for 9th grade officer because 2 of her best friends were running for SBO, and she didn't want to have any bad feelings between them from competing against each other. It was a good decision because she could support both of them, as they could her. Tay's speech was great. She tied in her "Update Your Status" slogan, and she even sang/played guitar. She really stood out with her originality. Her video was hilarious. I'll try to post her video and the speech on the blog later. After the assembly, they were supposed to go back to class and vote but the ballots got all messed up so they had to wait until Monday to vote. It was a looooong weekend. Again, I felt bad for the kids. They have spent so much time and energy in this process, only to have mistakes make the results agonizingly longer. But it all turned out well in the end, as Tay found out at the end of the school day on Monday that she had won. Her two friends also won, so they'll have a blast next year in Student Gov. Tay is really excited to plan great activities next year, and get the students more involved. We are so proud of her for running a great campaign, and are really, really glad it's over and done with!!
Our candidate, showing off her shrine on Grandma's fridge.
Proud Grandma and Grandpa came over for a post-election celebration. Tay had so much support from her family and friends.
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