Last Friday, Northtown’s homecoming court nominees were announced. Dalysa Calvin, Kylee Estes, Jha’Niece Johnson, Jourdyn Johnson, Calissa Minatee, Maya Melendez, Aisatu Nakoulima, PJ Adebawore, Gerald Lewis, Edric Hill, Bradley Brown, Alen Kovac, Ethan Stonecipher, and Joseph Pham are the 2022-2023 Homecoming Nominees. This year, some students tried a new way to get nominated: campaigning.

Many social media posts were made for students as campaigns for homecoming. These posts consisted of a picture of the student, their name, and a graphic telling people to vote for them.

            “So, I made everyone’s campaign posters myself,” Jha’Niece Johnson, (12) a nominee on the homecoming court, said, “But after the fact, everyone was like ‘Oh, make your own’ so I made one just with a picture of me that said ‘vote Jha’Niece Johnson’ and I mean, that was that.”

            Jha’Niece created campaign posters for Yar Manyiel, Kylee Estes, Oshana Martin, Alyssa Jones, Dalysa Calvin, and herself.

However, this strategy of getting nominated came with a few differences in opinion.

            “I feel a little annoyed.” Anita Huynh (12) said, “Because I didn’t really know half the people that got on homecoming, until now.”

Jha’Niece believes that this way of campaigning helps people who aren’t sure who to vote for pick nominees.

            “I don’t see an issue for the sake of like, freshmen and sophomores who don’t know a single senior […] and at the end of the day, there was a lot of [campaigners], people are gonna get upset. I knew this was gonna happen from the start.” Jha’Niece said.

Some argue that campaigning for something like homecoming isn’t all that important.

“I think it’s pointless because it’s not like you’re running for [Student Council] and stuff. It’s just homecoming, where people nominate you because they think you belong on there.” Huynh said.

For some, campaigning, while a new idea, speaks to the character of the nominees.

“I hadn’t really heard about people campaigning in the past, so I didn’t realize it was a thing,” Aisatu Nakoulima, (12) a nominee on the homecoming court, and the school student body president, said, “However, it makes me very happy to see people so eager and driven to represent Northtown.”