When senior Megan Aune learned she would be the 2016-17 Student Council president, she said she felt overjoyed, yet nervous, to represent the school and the community.

Aune said she feels honored to have fulfilled a dream of hers by becoming president.

“I’m feeling really confident about (being president). What I want to do with student council has been my dream my entire high school career — from ninth grade until now,” Aune said. “I want it to be about the school, and not just about the school but the community as a whole.”

Senior Student Council member Destiney Edwards said she feels eager to represent her grade.

“I’m excited about making some changes — just making new changes, making our school better,” Edwards said.

According to Student Council adviser Sarah Lindenberg, the new officers will play a significant role in pushing the Council to be its best.

“Each new officer has a unique set of strengths to offer the group,” Lindenberg said. “We did something new this year by having each officer complete the Gallup strengthsfinder inventory and it has been fun to have conversations about each of the officers’ strengths.”

This year’s Council stands out from years past because of its newfound diversity, said Aune.

“For the Council as a whole, we’re a lot more diverse than we were three or four years ago when I was a freshman. When I joined it was all white kids and now there’s more diversity and there’s more voices being heard throughout the school and that’s the most important thing for Student Council,” Aune said.

According to Edwards, diversity does not pose a problem to the Council because it’s hard to control who gets on Student Council.

“It’s not like you can be in control because everybody runs for (Student Council),” Edwards said. “You don’t really have any control over who’s going to be picked.”

Lindenberg said she hopes to incorporate more Student Council led activities into the school year.

“There is a lot of positive momentum with new ideas on Student Council this year. The students are working on implementing events between Homecoming and SnoDaze that are new, like an art chalk contest, game night and more frequent movie nights,” Lindenberg said.

According to Aune, Student Council will not be leading any Day 1 activities on the first day of school because of a lack of preparation time.

Aune said her goals for the year include getting students psyched about not just dances, but other Student Council run activities.

“For the beginning of the year Student Council really pushes the Homecoming dance, so the first month is all about planning the Homecoming dance. We also want to try a dance-a-thon to raise money for cancer and stuff like that,” Aune said. “We just want to do more for the community.”