SNOHOMISH — Their task is a daunting one: to lead a student body that as yet has no money, no tradition and no campus.
But the first elected student officers for Glacier Peak High School are doing just that.
Their job is a balancing act of anticipation, organization and imagination.
“It hit me after we had all the debates (before the election) how big our job actually is,” said Shane Humrich, 16, Glacier Peak’s first student body president.
Humrich is among the hundreds of underclassmen living in the south end of the Snohomish School District who will leave behind friends at Snohomish High School this summer to become part of the new school in the fall. Glacier Peak will not open with a senior class.
“We are putting a mark on the school that will be felt 20 or 30 years from now,” said Kendra Peterson, 15, the ASB secretary. “I’m so excited to get the chance to leave that mark.”
Like their future Glacier Peak classmates, they are eager to walk the halls of the new $88.9 million, 234,000-square-foot school when it opens.
They want to instill a sense of school spirit at a campus that is now a blank slate. It will help that many of their teachers at Snohomish High School will be part of the faculty at Glacier Peak, they said.
The challenge is exciting, said Catherine Jorgensen, 16, who will be the school’s treasurer.
“What we will be doing is taking some influences from here but also doing our own stuff,” Jorgensen said. “We have total creative freedom.”
For instance, the students know they won’t have a homecoming week next fall because there are no alumni to welcome home.
“We’re calling it ‘The Coming,’ ” said Marjorie Heard, 15, Glacier Peak’s newly elected vice president.
The school’s new leaders are glad their classmates were able to vote for their mascot, the Grizzlies, and on the final design. The school’s colors are navy blue and white, with silver accents.
How to use these colors and other ideas will be run past their new activities adviser, Teri Corwin, who participating in opening a new school in California several years ago.
“It is really a time to think about which traditions we would like to continue and the opportunities we have to create our own,” she said.
That connection to a school rich in tradition is not lost on the new Glacier Peak student leaders.
“We are still part of Snohomish,” Heard said. “It’s just two schools.”
“Yeah,” Humrich said. “It’s two schools; one Snohomish.”
Reporter Eric Stevick: 425-339-3446 or e-mail stevick@heraldnet.com.
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