As the 2017-18 school year comes to a close and the seniors prepare to move on to the next chapter of their lives, students here are preparing for exciting opportunities. The Student Council Elections are taking place and freshmen, sophomores and juniors are able to run for the 2018-19 school year.

Starting with the freshmen, Charlie Wehde as President, Sarah Herr as Vice President and Joe Hogan as Secretary are the first team running to be the sophomore class representatives. They appear to be a strong team and are prepared to make several changes, including improving the suggestion box program.

“We were inspired to form a team because we want to make a positive change for everyone at St. Dominic and help pursue the interests and passions they hold dear,” said Wehde.

The second team includes Liz Petruso as President, Claire Schnurr as Vice President and Christian Giarla as Secretary. This trio of freshmen have all taken part in student council before when they were in eighth grade and feel their success will carry over next year in representing the sophomore class.

“We also want student council to become something of the school – everyone’s opinions, with those elected just part of the group that makes the final call,” said Petruso.

Both teams are ecstatic to take part in bettering the community of St. Dominic and will prove it during their speeches in the week to come.

Moving to the sophomores, there are two teams running to represent the junior class. The first team consists of Joey Pescarino as President, Mary Allen as Vice President and Sean Thomas as Secretary. Their drive to cause change in the St. Dominic community is what brought them together to form a team.

“One of the main issues we plan to handle is achieving the normal sodas we’ve all been dying for in place of the diet sodas here at school,” said Thomas.

The second team is just as fierce as the first: Nate Johnson as President, Cameron Peters as Vice President and Delaney Wehde as Secretary. This team wants change for the school and hopes to unite all students of all grades.

“[We are most excited to] have the opportunity to be leaders in the student body since we will be upperclassmen. We are also excited to help run the dances, blood drive and other school events,” said Johnson.

They also have several ideas in the works to help better our school community, but intend to keep them secret until their speeches later next week.

Last, but not least, we have our juniors who are running for both senior class representatives and student body. Both teams were uncontested and gave their speeches after mass on Tuesday. The representatives for the senior class are Cece Cornett as President, Victor Gilinski as Vice President and Kennedy Murray as Secretary.

“We decided to form a team because we thought it would be a great way to end our four years at St. Dominic!” said Murray.

In their speech, the team talked about how they intend to bring music therapy to the students here at St. Dominic. During passing periods or even Empower Hour, music may be played to help alleviate some stress students feel during the school day. That’s just one of the many ideas they have in store for us next year.

As for the student body, the trio of juniors gave an entertaining speech that showed how multi-faceted the team is. Their members are Nathan Hakenewerth as President, Colby Koenig as Vice President and Jeremy Sutterer as Secretary. They showed Koenig’s

Spanish fluency with his responses as well as how intelligent Sutterer is with his participation in the math team.

“We are mostly just excited to be seniors and be in a position where we can help improve the school we have lived and grown in for three years,” said Sutterer.

Though the students of St. Dominic are going to miss our seniors, we are excited to see a new group who will build off past endeavors and contribute their own ideas. The students who are participating in student council this year intend to help us along, making the next chapter of our lives better than the last. Congratulations to all those who have assumed the roles and good luck to those who still have elections to come.