As her heart necklace swings back and forth on her rearview mirror, Junior Michaela Liebl drives to coronation in her white 2004 Honda Civic and jamming to “I Feel Good” by James Brown to help with her nerves. It was only a few weeks prior to this the Student Council members met at the first 30-minute meeting to discuss their ideas for coronation.
Coronation was no small task for the Student Council members. They held six meetings and the juniors and sophomores had met the Sunday before coronation from one to five to prepare the theater for the numerous people coming to show support for their school. They planned out every detail, even their script, which junior Cole Bachmier and Liebl wrote prior to coronation.
“[We made it so] we didn’t look like fools,” Liebl said.
The theme for coronation was the Olympics. Liebl said the Olympic rings took the most work to set up, but the balloons were blown up quickly with an air compressor. Names had been placed on the bottom of boxes that would contain balloons to be given to court members. Minutes before Coronation, Liebl’s nerves were starting to show,
“Dan Brown just had to put the biggest word I’ve ever seen as the word that describes him. It was pulchritudinous and it means handsome,” Liebl said. “Don’t mess up pulchritudinous I kept saying in my head until it started.”
Backstage, the Student Council members got the boxes holding the balloons that announced the winners ready to hand out. The boxes had been put in the order that everyone was standing. The only people who knew who won before coronation started were administrative assistant Cybil Johnson in the office, assistant principal Holly Ripley, and math teachers Rick Wilson and Duane Broe.
“The three Student Council kids that helped deliver the boxes found out after coronation started as we put the winning balloons in Brooke and Kory’s box,” Wilson, Student Council adviser, said.
Those who worked to set up coronation thought that it went well, numerous people attended to show their support for the members of the court. There were no last minute changes and everything went according to plan.
“I thought it couldn’t have went any better,” Liebl said. “Everyone helped and after we got everything cleaned up fast.”