Student assumes leadership role, helps with Homecoming preparation

Scrambling to get the Kickoff Dance prepared on the second day of school, class officers, commissioners and ASB officers dashed around the quad with balloons, streamers and nacho bowls in the hours before the dance began during the evening of Aug. 19.

At this stressful time, junior Connor Reyes stepped in, helping to set up the streamers for the entrance and taking action wherever needed. Even though Reyes was not officially on the Leadership team, he was recognized by senior ASB president Mitali Shanbhag in a post on the Leadership page a couple days after the event, thanking him for his last-minute assistance.

He is also contributing to the efforts of the junior class as the head of the quad day script-writing team.

In addition to writing the script, Reyes is also helping out with decorations and will be in the boys’ and partner dances. Reyes has had past experience working with the class of 2018 Homecoming committee from his sophomore year and decided to continue this year.

“Since no one else was going to [lead the skit] and after a bit of working on it, I decided I would commit myself to it,” Reyes said. “I had a lot of fun working on it last year so I thought I would do it again this year.”

While this is only Reyes’s second year working on the script, he has used his knowledge of how to create a successful quad day for his class. Last year, he was able to quickly learn the do’s and don'ts of writing a script and now was able to turn the juniors’ theme of Monsters Inc. into a humorous story of scaring the other classes.

Although Reyes himself is not an experienced scriptwriter, he has worked with others in his class, such as junior drama student Hannah Yoon, to create it.

“He offers a lot of ideas and decides the final plot of how the skits going to go and who’s going to be part of what,” Yoon said. “People see him as a leader, and without him we would all be arguing.”

Additionally, Reyes has encountered some problems due to this year’s shorter lunch schedule. Since administration did not agree to an extended lunch period for quad day performances, Reyes was forced to work in a time crunch in order to convey a great story in a shorter period.

While dealing with the time constraint, Reyes also had to deal with complaints from his peers. He sometimes faced opposition to jokes, plot points and the like.

Although working with Homecoming was rewarding, it was, at the same time, a challenge for Reyes.

“It’s definitely not easy with the stress of junior year, but I know when the time comes to perform, all that hard work will pay off,” Reyes said. “Put passion into whatever you do and you’ll be rewarded.”