What senior class President doesn't dress up for spirit week? What student council has to fight for the right to create and promote interesting fundraiser ideas? What senior class should have to feel like their last year isn't as important as it should be? Sadly, at my high school, this seems to be the reality.

As a senior, my last year in high school is supposed to be magical: filled with great memories of friends, pep rallies, prom and graduation. The only issue that my school seems to be having is raising the money to successfully host these senior events. I realize now, that things would have been much more different if I had been elected to the student council as president for my senior year. Let me take this moment to say that I would have done everything differently, and that by the end of our junior year, we would have had enough money to pay for every senior activity in full.

I would like to take this opportunity to share with you, the campaign speech i could have used to be elected as president.

"First, let me congratulate the senior class on their arrival to senior year; the last year, and the best. I look forward to the sports games, the school dances, and of course, graduation, just as any other student might. I am just as excited to be finished with AP tests, midterms and finals as any other student. And I am just as anxious to be done with high school, into college, and onto another chapter of my life. This is the heart of my speech: the idea that the student body president should not be Valedictorian, captain of the football team and a part of every club and committee at the school. Instead, the president should be a fellow student; a friend and an ally. The president should be someone to talk to, someone to listen to problems and to have the right mind to fix them. I realize that voting for the same student for the fourth year in a row is the safe choice, and the choice that each student sitting here will most likely make, but I also realize that it is our senior year, and senior year is about making the most by taking risks.

I may not be a qualified politician, but I do care how our senior year turns out and how these memories we make will affect our views on high school forever. I am just another student who wants prom to be unparalleled to any other and wants graduation to be perfect. In short, I want to be a part of the group that gets to decide just how memorable our senior year is.

I am the type of student who may not be as involved as others are, or as athletic, or as smart, even, but I am willing to push the student council to work hard and to make a difference this year. I am willing to work with new ideas and with new people, maybe students that have not had the chance for their voice to be heard. I am willing to push our administrators to try new things and to bring creativity into the school. I am willing to take charge to right the wrongs of years past and to focus solely on our class for the next nine months. This is our senior year, we should be taking risks and going out on a limb. We should be thinking crazy ideas and doing stupid stunts, which is another reason why I am here. Who better to take the lead than a student who has already had these crazy thoughts and ideas and is willing to put them to use? It is time for you stop voting for the safe choice and think of how great your senior year could be if we worked together, as a class, to get the most out of our senior year. I am looking forward to working with each and every student, to find out what they want to see and to work on making their ideas possible."

I think, as a class officer, I would have made a huge difference. I would have put my whole heart into the perfect senior year. Each student has an idea of what they want to see for their last year in high school, the only difference in each student is how willing they are to share their ideas and to speak up. My philosophy is that, the more people who share their ideas and contribute something to the pot, the better the outcome will be, not to mention the outcome will have something everyone wants. It is a win-win situation, and from where we are now, my senior class at can only go up.

Even though I did not run for a student council position, I am still working my hardest, as a student, to contribute to everyone's senior year. I have been helping with the Senior Shirt fundraiser, pitching new ideas to the student council members for various fundraisers that the class might be interest in, and I have recently taken up being a part of the video yearbook, trying to include every student in my project. I have also been including other students in my discussions on various senior functions and how we can make each one better than the last. I am looking forward to sharing my ideas with the current president so we can put together an outstanding year and include every student in doing so.