Running unopposed, juniors Daniel Magpayo and Albert Chung secured their positions as ASB president and vice president, respectively, while juniors Jenna Beining and Carrie Cheng earned the most votes against their opponents to capture the secretary and treasurer spots, respectively, the ASB officials said.
ASB co-adviser Mike Paris said winners were notified over the weekend; usually, the whole campus finds out the Monday after the Friday voting during second period announcements. But because the campus has been closed to students from March 16-20, Paris didn’t mind releasing the results to The Accolade for online posting.
“I was very nervous and anxious waiting for the link to open after getting the text result from Mr. Paris, but once I saw the results, I was overjoyed to see the outcome,” said Beining, whose ASB secretary candidate video and campaign were based on the 2006 movie, “High School Musical,” and featured a parody of the film’s main theme song, “We’re All in This Together.” “I had low expectations going into it because my competitors ran such great campaigns, so it was a really great feeling to know I had won.”
Following this theme of iconic 2000’s movies and television shows, Cheng’s campaign theme was influenced by the 2001 cartoon “The Fairly OddParents” and showcased her wearing a bright pink cap and T-shirt to cosplay Timmy Turner, the main character of the show.
“When I got the message notification from ASB, I was so nervous to open it, and once I saw my name, I was overfilled with happiness,” she said. “I didn’t scream, but my heart started beating super fast, and I couldn’t stop smiling.”
Although she lost in her campaign for ASB secretary, junior Kathryn Aurelio said still plans to contribute toward student government by running for senior class treasurer — a position no one else has yet to sign up for as a candidate.
“It was pretty difficult to gather the mental strength to run again after a month of campaign preparations and weeks of actual campaigning,” Aurelio said. “However, Mr. Paris recognized my qualifications and encouraged me to run for senior class cabinet.”
Students were allowed to cast their votes Friday, March 13, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. using the 5-Star Students app. The voting period ended only hours before the Fullerton Joint Union High School District announced via e-mail that it would be shutting down its six and two continuation school campuses until March 30 in response to concerns over the novel coronavirus threat.
Magpayo, who is also currently the junior class president, was unable to celebrate his presidential victory with friends as a result of the school’s sudden closure.
“I wasn’t too worried about people not voting because of school shutting down since I was running unopposed, but I definitely thought that removing the assembly ruined the hype and the fun around running for a campaign,” he said. “For example, I didn’t get to say my presidential speech during second period.”
Some teachers also ran into technical issues while attempting to play the campaign videos during second period, resulting in some students being unable to watch them, said Beining, who also had to resort to a low profile celebraton upon finding out she had the most votes for ASB secretary.
“Typically, we would go out to dinner to celebrate winning, but this time we couldn’t because of the coronavirus,” she said. “The whole thing is unfortunate, but I know there are people worse off than me, so I’m trying to stay positive about the whole situation.”
