New student body officers were voted on and elected into office April 5th and 6th here at Sunnyslope high school in an ushering in of new, energetic faces.

Every spring, Sunnyslope holds its student body election for president, vice president, treasurer, and social media manager and this year seemed more important than ever to keep Sunnyslope’s spirit alive.

“I feel like they’re bringing in a lot of excitement and new life into Student Council,” said Outgoing Treasurer Teague Perez. 

These new faces of Student Council will be led by the new president Junior Claire Calkins – who has some shoes to fill of her own at her new position.

Calkin’s brother was president 2021-2022 and she said he was an integral part of her running for president and joining student council as a whole after hearing only good things from him.

However, Calkins doesn’t plan on getting stuck in the shadow of her brother and wishes to bring spirit back to an all time high.

“I want people to look forward to assemblies instead of dreading them, and I want people to look forward to Hoopcoming instead of dreading it,” said Calkins, “I think spirit should be a big part of Sunnyslope because it was in the past.”

Indeed spirit was a key part of what made Sunnyslope so popular in the past, but this level of school passion hasn’t quite been the same in the past few years. 

Perez said that since Covid-19, “Sunnyslope’s passions and tradition just died out a little” and he said it wasn’t easy to recreate because “rebuilding off of Covid; there was a lot missing because a lot of us just didn’t know how to continue those tradition that we’d had for so long.”

This lack of passion may finally be on its way out the window as this year’s elections – class and student body – brought signs of a revival. 

Newly Elected Vice President Tiffany Hagan said, “I think it’s really impressive that a lot of people ran for things this year; like seeing all the freshmen and sophomores running for (class) president and (class) vice president.”

If Sunnyslope is finally able to finish rebuilding its spirit then one important step is going to be a slight change in attitude.

“I don’t think it should be seen as a free period because it’s really not,” said Hagan, “We do have things to do.”

However, the tension and stress of rebuilding Sunnyslope’s spirit should not take away from the excitement that our newly elected officials feel. 

New Student Body Treasurer Kenzie Kimmel summed up her feeling and said she is very excited.

This feeling is a mutual one for the rest of the group but as always with new opportunities comes some form of nervousness.

Calkins said being elected was “really cool, but it was also a little bit scary because it is such a big school and to be president of all those people is a little bit nerve wracking.” 

Despite whatever feelings may be going around there is a lot to look forward to and fun to be had.

“There’s no tension,” said Hagan, “I think we will all work together really well this year.”

Having fun isn’t the only thing that caused these students to run; though, as being a part of Sunnyslope was also a driving factor.

Kimmel said, “I wanted to feel like I was actually helping Student Council by being something; like treasurer.” 

So, next year should hopefully be a year full of spirit and fun at Sunnyslope and at the very least it seems like the new student body officials are gonna try their best.

“We’ve gotten a lot of feedback this year on what we can do better,” said Calkins, “so I’m hoping to incorporate a lot of that into events next year to make it what people really want.”

In spite of the supposed responsibility of Student Council to bring back the school’s spirit, the task is not one that needs to be done without assistance from fellow students. 

Perhaps only with this renewal of passionate involvement from students can the spirit and tradition that once made Sunnyslope a special place be revived by this latest group of energetic student body officials.