Student Council Elections

Malad High School Student Council Elections are beginning this week.
Candidates up for election include: Braxton Davis for President; Wesley Peterson and Stephani Treasure for Vice President; Nicona Broadus and Meaghen Brown for Secretary; McKenzie Willie for Historian; Carson McClain and Cole Finder for Business Manager; Heidi Hannah and Katie Neal for Head Cheerleader.
Student Council considered having the candidates make a campaign video with their election speeches. Instead of having candidates present speeches in front of the student body, they would just run the videos for the voters to see.
In the end, Student Council decided against the videos. According to Shannon Davis, Student Council Advisor, they felt the candidates should “feel the pressure” of standing before the student body to give their speeches.
“We had discussed the possibility of doing videos to ensure that there were no borderline behaviors or content in the speeches, but after talking to the student council we made an arrangement with the administration to have candidates pre-present their speeches, and they must do the exact same speech for the student body at the assemblies,” said Jacob Stevens, current Student Body President.
Offices with more than two candidates running are required to present a preliminary speech Tuesday, April 24. The speeches cannot be longer than three minutes. If a candidate has any planned participation from the audience, that candidate will be disqualified. The speech must strictly be a speech and nothing else. This goes for all speeches within the Student Council Elections, not just the preliminaries. Final election speeches will be held on Thursday, April 26 in the High School gym.
Those running are required to create a poster. Each candidate will be given eight feet of paper. This paper cannot be cut into smaller pieces. The candidate's poster will sell them as officer. They must include their proposal for the upcoming homecoming year, a resume and a current letter of recommendation. Posters will be hung before school Monday, April 23.
According to Malad High School Counselor Irene Alder, students are not willing to take responsibility and become the leaders of the rest of the student body.
“We had to postpone elections for one week because we couldn’t fill the ballot,” Alder said. “Don’t like something, don’t just gripe, run for an office and make a difference.”