She walks around with a Tupperware container of homemade cookies. She smiles and offers cookies to students sitting and eating in the lunchroom. She needs people to vote. She has to get her name out there.

Freshman Katie McNevin joined StuCo in the fall. As a general member, McNevin had little input on decisions made within and about the club.

“I really wanted to be a bigger part of StuCo,” McNevin said. “Right now, I’m a Knight Time representative. I want to be able to have more of an impact of what happens in StuCo.”

One of the best ways to gain responsibility is to run for an officer’s position. With elections in February, McNevin saw an opportunity and ran for the Chief of Staff position. With the Chief-of-Staff position, McNevin would be in charge of keeping track of everyone’s points, who attends each meeting and write next year’s StuCo requirements, as well as attending all the meetings.

“A lot of it is outside of school, going through and writing people’s hours, which I’m okay with honestly,” McNevin said. “I think it’d be calming, at the end of a day of work, just being able to chill and write people’s hours.”

The application process to become an officer includes many steps. It’s one of the reasons many people running don’t even make it to the point where their name is on the ballot.

“It was really long, you had to have all of your teachers say if they would recommend you or not,” McNevin said. “And then we had to get 30 signatures from the freshman, sophomore and junior grade levels, which was a little stressful.”

Once McNevin officially applied she had to make sure people actually voted for her. On voting day, candidates were allowed to stay during the lunch hours to campaign and encourage voting. Many candidates gave candy to students, but McNevin decided on something else. Homemade cookies.

“[Cookies] would benefit the people running and give more of a reason for people to vote,” freshman Caitlyn Wheadon said.

On that Friday, McNevin was elected StuCo Chief-of-Staff. The results of that vote were conveyed over the announcements at the end of the day the following Monday. McNevin was the only freshman elected as an official and she will work with upperclassmen officers for the next year in StuCo.

“I think it’s really important because each person is surrounded in their own background,” another freshman candidate Macy Cronin said. “They will have fresh ideas and new perspective from each background so that our school truly does incorporate every single person at FHN. They will be included in StuCo and feel that they belong here.”

McNevin feels little pressure working with upperclassmen and she hopes to represent the current freshman well.

“I’m not too worried about it,” McNevin said. “But I do hope to make freshman voices heard more. I think I can help with having some creative ideas and being able to voice the opinions of our peers, some of the things they don’t like about past things or somethings that people thought were good.”