The Nexus

Ellre Ancheta (11) and Corbin Santos (11), the new senior class presidents, are going to be different.

“[To improve senior year], I’ve been talking to a lot of people, and they want more class activities to bring the student body together,” Ancheta said. “I feel that it’s important to listen to their opinions and what they have to say.”

Besides following the senior package, a list of senior year events and activities, Santos has plans to make some changes as well.

“I want to make class council more involved,” he said. “I don’t want it to be where it’s only a group of people who go to the meetings all the time. I want as much of the senior class to [contribute].”

ASB adviser Laurie Norcross said that Ancheta and Santos have a lot of responsibilities ahead of them.

“The senior class presidents make a float and plan for the homecoming dance,” she said. “They also have the senior package, which consists of give-away days, the harbor cruise, senior picnic and Disneyland.”

Santos said that the race for class president was a long process. However, the work paid off for both of them.

The application included 50 signatures, three teacher recommendations, and multiple short-answer questions.

“The signatures were not very hard to get, but I still had to explain why I was running, and [at the same time], try to convince them why they should support me,” Santos said. “The short-answer questions were hard at times. I had to put a thoughtful answer for each one.”

The required interview with Norcross, past presidents, and other interviewees, ran from 15-30 min.

“I wasn’t nervous, but I felt unprepared when going in there,” Santos said. “There was an e-mail sent [to all the candidates] with the interview questions. If I had seen them, I could have been more prepared.”

Ellre said that before she went into the interview she felt nervous, but she began to relax and feel more comfortable as the interview progressed

“I was just thinking, wow, I hope they don’t think I’m boring,” she said. “But overall, I think it went well. We shared a few laughs throughout the interview and the panel was actually really nice. I think it kind of helped that I’ve been interviewed before for an ASB position and some of the faces were familiar.”

Norcross said she was looking for specific qualities in each candidate during the interview. Dedication and someone who would put the work in was important as well as someone who handled money very well.

“I looked for someone who would go to different companies and businesses to get the best deal,” she said. “I looked for a person who was a go-getter.”

To campaign for the election ballot, Ancheta and Santos made posters and T-shirts.

Ancheta made her posters herself, and her friends helped put them up around campus. Her trademark dinosaur appeared on her T-shirts and wristbands.

“Some people know I like dinosaurs and some even associate them with me,” she said. “Plus, dinosaurs are DINO-mite, especially stegosauruses!”

Santos used five designs for his T-shirts. Each design said something different about voting for Santos. He also made an effort to pass out the T-shirts to students beyond his group of friends to wear.

“I didn’t want it to be just my friends,” he said. “I handed them out to different groups of people, and they either wore them on Wednesdays or Fridays.”

Ancheta has been involved in ASB since she was the sixth grade class president of Hidden Valley Middle School. Last year, she held the position of (Personal Recognition In Daily Effort) PRIDE Commissioner.

Bianca Reynoso (11) and Ancheta, both PRIDE Commissioners, started the PRIDE program. It entails a teacher choosing a student who represented the character count for the month.

That student received giveaways, usually food, from the PRIDE commissioners.

“As a PRIDE commissioner, you had to be pretty creative in how the invitations to the student who got nominated by a teacher would look, so through this process I got my creative juices going,” Ancheta said. “It also takes a lot of planning and organization to be this position because you had to coincide the dates with Norcross and the nomination periods. Also you have to be thorough in getting the nominations back from the teachers. My partner and I actually kickstarted the PRIDE program that [had] been taking years to pull off, so I guess we made a difference by finally making the vision of the PRIDE program a reality.”

Ancheta said that the position helped qualify her for the position of senior president.

Although Santos has little ASB experience, he has been a part of the freshman, sophomore and junior class council.

“In class council, I didn’t feel the sense of family,” he said. “This is one of the reasons why I wanted to be class president. I wanted [the senior class council] to be more organized and effective. I’ve been on the officer board of the club Bayanihan for the past three years, and I’ve had responsibilities. It has taught me leadership, and how important it is to be close to club members. I want [senior class council] to be the same way also.