Stopping by CHS Student Council restores faith in youth

Having waded through a difficult past year, many of the common traditions seem to have taken on greater significance. One of these is “homecoming.”

While the actual origins of homecoming are uncertain, the event and its associated celebrations have been around since the 1800s.

Dropping by Clovis High School to hear about this year’s homecoming preparations, I experienced a delightful revelation: faith in humanity, specifically, our youth — restored.

The CHS Student Council sponsor, English teacher Kori Strickland, pulled several of her students for an interview about homecoming. We settled in to talk, and I can’t remember the last time I’d felt such gratification and pure enjoyment chatting with students. These young people were amazing: articulate, positive, clearly bright, insightful, filled with enthusiasm.

As they began to share specifics about homecoming plans, we eased into more general conversation. This school year’s the first time being back in school in a year and a half under more normal circumstances, and these kiddos were eager to share.

Christian Villegas, a junior and student body vice president, shared, “There’s a renewed spirit of interest in getting involved with things at school. We don’t take for granted what we used to. We’re wanting to get the overall student body involved in activities, and community involvement is very important to us.”

Senior Julia Avila, student body president, chimed in, “We’re trying to go above and beyond to involve the whole school more. My favorite quote is, ‘Be the change you want to see in the world.’ I learned I can be positive and directly influence thos around me.”

Wow!

Alexandria Griego, junior class president, also chimed in, when I asked about differences in planning this year. “For one thing, we’re going to have our pep rally at the football stadium instead of in the gym. Mainly because of COVID, but it’s also less daunting to do the skits and activities outside. (Yes, she used “daunting;” I was definitely impressed.)

They began to describe the changes they were making, such as getting more input from the student body at large and working on positivity across campus.

Positivity became the main topic of conversation. Christian said, “I surround myself with positive people to have a positive impact.”

Alexandria followed: “It’s important to dwell on positivity instead of negativity.”

Julia described some of the projects they’re doing, the “above and beyond” types of things. “We’re writing positive messages, inspiring quotes, that kind of thing on sticky notes and putting them on student and teacher cars, in the restrooms, on the walls.”

Wow!

Truth be told, I forgot about homecoming, just listening to these students talk about their thoughts, observations and the resultant actions.

We’ll just have to come back later to talk about homecoming specifics.

Cindy Kleyn-Kennedy is the Instructional Technology Coordinator for the Clovis Municipal Schools and can be reached at

[email protected]