By Augie Walters ’21
THE ROUNDUP
In a school year where social gatherings have had to be eliminated from the typical curriculum of bringing the Brophy student body together, the Student Council has had to adjust their activities to become more socially distant.
The council normally prides themselves on creating special sceneries and a vibrant atmosphere for dances like Homecoming with more than two thousand students.
“Student council is appointed to build community and to make sure Brophy is a fun, life-giving place to be where everybody feels that they have a connection point,” said Mr. Pete Burr ’07, the head of the Student Council on campus.
The seniors in the class admit that this year has felt different for all of the Student Council members, including Will Ragan ’21.
“STUCO is definitely different this year. To try to keep all students engaged in campus life, those online and in person, we are posting various activities online,” Ragan said.
Another member of the council, Will Warner ’21, talked about how even in his first year in Student Council he could already see it was a different year.
“From the other kids in the room and from Mr. Burr I have been told that we basically had to start thinking outside the box,” Warner said.
However, Warner does not believe that thinking outside of the box is a negative thing.
“The big positive is that this has been the perfect year to really see how much we can do outside of the classroom. This has led to the Olympics, Pony Express, TikTok, a Minecraft Speedrun competition, the rock, paper, scissors livestream rally, and more,” Warner said.
Student Council has created multiple online media platforms for the students to keep involved in the Brophy community.
“We have a website, the Stampede, to post daily challenges, quizzes, and events people can take part in. We are also engaging students through social media like our Twitter and brand new TikTok account,” Ragan said.
The group was first able to come up with the idea of what is being called the Brophy Olympics, allowing students to partake in serious and not-so-serious competitions over a semester to receive a day off of school in the spring.
The Olympics were brought into campus on October 28th with a rock, paper, scissors tournament for all students to watch.
“We wanted to keep that feeling of homecoming week but not have all of the people convene. Mr. Burr and Mr. Oldani loved the idea and thought it was a good way of keeping all of campus together while still being apart,” Ragan said.
It may look different, but people engaging with each other is still the Student Council’s priority.
“Because we are completely reinventing the wheel, it took us a little bit longer to get things going this semester, but with the start of the Brophy Olympics we are trying to shrink the size of the campus and still allow students to meet others they would not normally interact with,” Mr. Burr said.
The Olympics are a start to a way of looking at the Student Council in a non-dance lens, and it takes passionate kids to be able to make that transition as smooth as it can be in a time like now.
“Culture takes a while to build, and we had a really good dance culture that had been built over ten to fifteen years, so we have had to take a little bit of time as that culture cannot shift overnight,” Mr. Burr said, “But we are really hopeful and there is a ton of great energy for the Olympics and what other future events can continue to be.”
In addition to the Olympics, the Student Council remains hard making an online version of the Fine Arts Extravaganza.
“The next big project we have been working on is a virtual FAE recently which includes a virtual gallery to showcase student’s art and a Youtube live link and are excited to show students’ talents the Tuesday before Thanksgiving,” Mr. Burr said.
Ragan also showed excitement toward the Fine Arts Extravaganza and what the Brophy students are bringing to the table.
“There is some real talent on the online FAE. We have school musicians recording their talents on video. There will be typical art submissions from art classes from the talented artists here. There are even some cool new performances happening like a Yo-Yo musical performance by Mack Atencia,” Ragan said.
December is going to bring more activities for the Brophy students from the Student Council.
“Look out for some more Olympic events and content from our social media. We [have] some really fun competitions and high quality content coming out soon,” Warner said.
