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Sara Luepschen
Instructor Mat Wenzel
ENC 2135
15 July 2017
This Means War: Choir vs. Senior Council
I felt honored my last year of high school to become the Senior Class President—a position I had always wanted and worked for. My council was made up of fellow seniors whom I would say were only acquaintances at the time. We may have known each other’s names as it was a smaller school, but most of us had never had a conversation with each other. I took this as an opportunity to get to know some new people. I had no way of knowing that these would be the people to support me through all that was to come my senior year. They were strangers that would become my chosen family.
The senior council was a blend of many unique individuals. Quinn, Cristian, Jazmine, Rachel, and I were the less noteworthy members in the context of this story, meaning that no one ever blinked twice when they saw us in the halls. Some kids stood out significantly in the group: three IB kids. The first was Matthew, an adorably quirky boy that will be attending Yale. The second was Ritika, the Valedictorian of our class, who will be attending Emory. Another member who stood out more than others was the sole transgender student in our entire school, Julian who once went by Julie.
One of the largest responsibilities of being in this school council was to plan a Baccalaureate service for the senior class—a 100-year-old tradition at my school. It was a huge
task, but we were incredibly driven to make it the best one yet. We were in charge of every detail of the event, excluding one thing: the location. Who would have known that a single venue would become so problematic? The issue of the venue surrounded our passionate school choir, a choir that had performed at the event for the last 100 years. We all loved this tradition and had no desire to change it. Our council sponsor pre-selected and booked a venue for the service. This was a different location from where it had been held for many years before. The building where it used to be held had a choir pit and plenty of stage space. In comparison, the newly selected venue was more of a modern place. It had no choir pit, which presented us with a huge issue. The choir’s alternative for a choir pit was risers for all the performers to stand upon. Unfortunately, those risers would have been too large to fit on stage. As soon as the choir president, Jace, heard his choir would not be able to perform at Baccalaureate, he scheduled a joint meeting with his choir council and my senior class council.
A week later, the meeting took place. It felt like a standoff, with his council on one side of the room and my council on the other. The vibe in that room was very tense and uncomfortable. Immediately he said, “Why do you hate tradition? This is the 100-year anniversary and you want to take this moment away from us.” He blamed us for them not being able to perform at the service, unwilling to accept that it was not our decision to hold Baccalaureate in a different location. He hurled accusatory questions at me directly, his eyes not leaving mine.
Though he was specifically targeting me with the questions, my council refused to let me take all the heat. I can specifically remember Quinn saying, “Hey! Give her a chance to talk and you will understand she is doing all she can.” He was not the only one to make comments like this one. Throughout the meeting, each of my friends assisted me in my explanation. It was not just one person that made a point of sticking up for me. The senior council all spoke up for me when they did not have to, seeing as it was really only my responsibility to deal with it. They refused to let me be verbally attacked. The situation was finally resolved months later as we were able to persuade Jace to give up on the risers so that they could sing. Even though this was a difficult dilemma to deal with, it taught me that these kids will really have my back even when they do not have to. Through this situation, it built up the trust I have for them.
During that year, several of the members were having issues outside of the council. Other students taunted Ritika relentlessly with racial slurs because she is Indian. Those of us in the senior council refused to put up with that once we witnessed it. We did all we could to make them realize that they were being ridiculous with their rude words. It felt like our job to inform them that being a certain race does not make someone any greater or lesser of an individual. The shade of our skin does not define who are. It is just simply another characteristic that makes us unique. I am proud to say that my friends stood up for her every time someone uttered an ignorant word towards her.
Julian had also been dealing with others hatred for a long time. None of the members knew what he was dealing with before this year. The student body fired incessant ridicule at Julian simply because of his gender identity. We would not allow our friend to be a victim of transphobic people and their hatred. We defended him every time a classmate would crack some stupid joke about Julian’s “real name” being Julie. Though my high school is not perfect, I feel it is on the way to becoming more accepting and less ignorant. This is occurring because the student body is becoming more informed of gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation. The students seem to be understanding that diversity should only lead to a positive experience.
Our friend Julian is a talented artist. He took it upon himself to create the masterpiece that would become our senior class shirt for the year, as another responsibility of ours was to design and sell it. The baby blue cotton featured his hand drawn image of Zeus (our mascot). It proclaimed our newfound motto: “Loud N Proud. We’re Living the Dream. Class of 2017”. The shirt fit our school, class, and friend group perfectly. Julian made something so symbolic and representative of our fierce group. I feel it was so fitting because that year we learned to be proud of who we all are as individuals, despite what others might try to make us believe. With the help of our new friend group, we realized it is so much more important to be unapologetically ourselves, than to let others dictate our lives. This mutual support that we had for one another felt vital to our growth of character and individuality in our senior year.