Time for Something New

Student Council’s election day has come and gone, and Katie Proctor has been declared the winner. Proctor, who raced James Brenneman for the presidency, won the race by a 5.6 point margin, while her chosen vice presidential candidate, Leyna Gibson, won her race by 17.8 points, winning 49.7% of the vote.

Student turnout was a priority for the administration, very nearly reaching their polling goal. "We really wanted to hit that 300 mark, and we were right there! 299!” exclaimed Ms. Levalley. “But I guess it would've looked bad if we had exactly 300 votes." With just over 40% of JA’s 696 enrolled students voting in the election, LeValley and StuCo were satisfied with voter turnout.

Students cited varying reasons for their vote, from personal investment to a vibe-check. 

Sophomore Abby Renner said she voted for Proctor because, “Katie Proctor is a good person, she's always helping people, and I think Lana's going to make an excellent VP."

However, for a vocal plurality of students, the mood was more nihilistic. “I just spun a wheel,” sophomore Aidan Peck admitted, while another sophomore, Todd Short, said he “didn’t know who to vote for.”

Others, like sophomore Kris Rawlins, shrugged and admitted, “I just voted for Katie because I like her."

For Proctor herself, her ultimate priority was getting her name to be recognized, even by those least engaged with student politics. “I was really just trying to get as much outreach as I could at our school so people would know who I was,” she explained. “Talking to everyone was really important. Like, hey, I’m running, and here’s what I’m running on!” 

But, in the end, it came down to the wire. After all her outreach, at one point giving out handfuls of candy stamped with her name, she expected everything to ride on the debate broadcast over the morning announcements.

“I really, really relied on my speech, morning-of, just to be like, here's what I'm running on! Here's why you should vote for me! You've already seen my name, but why should you get out and vote? ”Her goals in office, she explained, rely less on flashy events. Instead, she places value on student feedback.

“I appreciate how we do debriefs in StuCo, but I want to expand that to the rest of the student body,” she explained. “I want to have more participation.”

Her goals also involve getting more voices involved in StuCo, and organizing and streamlining the (at times) meandering processes of student governance.  

“If nobody wants to come to Winter Formal, why should we have a Winter Formal?” Proctor mused. “What if we did something that people actually want to do?”