High school students help build a certain culture and environment through the events in their high school. Most of them don’t know what goes on behind the scenes. The majority of students who attend these events have no idea what goes into making them as great as they show.

   Several groups help to organise these school events. Junior Miranda Jernberg is the vice-president of the student body at Eaglecrest High School, and she has a very specific view of how she sees things when it comes to event planning. Her overall message was clear.

   “I’m here because I want people to have this great high school experience,” she said.

   There was a lot more that she described behind this, some things she showed to be extremely passionate in. The single most thing she is hoping to bring to the school in regards of the events held is much greater participation.

   She explained that in previous years, many of the event planning groups in the school took advantage of believing that since it is a school event there would be a high participation rate. Doing this would require greater effort in advertising and more of these groups promoting school spirit.

    Jernberg and the rest of the student council can’t do it alone. To help them, they have the staff of Eaglecrest and perhaps the most importantly, Kelly Snell.

   Snell is the current Activities Director of Eaglecrest High School and has been one of the biggest supporters of school spirit at events. In one past event she shared with me, she recalled the first time she saw a sea of red Raptors at a football game.

   Snell recalled 14 years ago, when she saw little to no spirit or participation in school pride. She knew she had to do something about that. During the first homecoming football game of the season, Snell and another one of her coworkers decided to sell red t-shirts for the sake of adding school spirit to these events.

   Due to how cheap they were, hundreds of students bought these shirts. Snell remembers the first time she went in front of the student-filled bleachers and saw the Eaglecrest student section as something she had never seen before. She saw a uniform of red shirts supporting the team.

   This was one of the first times Snell realized that she wanted to continue her promotion of school events. Snell doesn’t plan and promote events alone though.

   “Nothing students see happens from just one person,” she said.

   She works with Athletics Director Vincent Orlando, the Student Council, Link Crew, and her team of other staff members who help her set up school spirit events at Eaglecrest.

   Both Snell and Jernberg agree that the Spirit Bus is the biggest event covering school pride. Jernberg remembers being in elementary school and loving seeing the spirit bus high school students come to her school. She used to be so excited to be a spirited part of her high school, which she feels she has accomplished.

    Whether it be promoting school pride through events like the spirit bus and football games, or through advertising, it is wildly important to Snell and Jernberg to encourage these students.

    “Whenever we work with students we want to empower them to go along with our ideas,” she said.

    Once a Raptor, always a Raptor.