While many students look forward to Prom, the Battle of the Bands, the Dodgeball/Volleyball Tournament, and the Senior Picnic, few know about the club behind those events that plans most things about them. The club works with the school to plan these big events and raises money in order to give students more events or activities to do or throughout the school year. Teacher Arene Staszak has been the advisor for the club for 16 years and is behind helping students plan the events and helping set up the fundraisers.
“I try my best to make sure that the students run it, and I just give guidance and say, ‘Oh, here’s the things that we need, and they come up with all that’,” Staszak said.
The club has five key officers in various roles, including a President, Vice President, treasurer, secretary, and a social media specialist. Aside from those five roles, there are around 45 other members in the club, making it one of the biggest clubs within the school. As president of the club, Eva Walters has a lot of responsibility to make sure that the club runs smoothly and gets everything planned out that it needs to on time.
“I look at the agenda, plan and carry out meetings, and help delegate roles and responsibilities for the different things we put on,” Walters said.
The officers are not the only ones responsible for planning and helping out with events, as all the other members are also vital to running things smoothly. Because there are so many things that need to get done when an event is being planned or happening, the club meets every Tuesday to plan everything out and who is doing what and when.
“I helped a lot with hallway decorating and coming up with ideas for that, and I helped tear down after Homecoming,” member Ali Wagner said.
Due to nearly all events needing money to be planned and carried out, there are fundraisers that the club does throughout the year to raise that money. In recent years, trying to plan things for the school has become much harder to stay within budget for the club because of everything rising in price. The club has done extra fundraising within recent years to try to keep the cost of Prom tickets the same price, but still thinks that they might have to raise the price this year to keep up with inflated prices.
“I was kind of flabbergasted by how much more Prom was, but in recent years, prices have gone up so much that now what I’ve normally budgeted doesn’t work,” Staszak said.
Staszak recommends that any sophomore wanting to join Junior Exec next year should pay attention at the end of the school year for announcements about getting involved and being a part of the club. The board is picked at the end of the year so that it is ready to go by the next year, but even if someone did not join or thought they were not able to join due to CCP or program, they will still be able to join the next year. Staszak said they just need to ask to get involved and stay out of trouble, and they should be able to get in.
Walters said, “It’s really cool to have the experience of being able to be in a leadership role in that way, and it’s just a really good thing to have under your belt.”
