Being a candidate for Homecoming or Courwarming is a unique experience. The rules are simple:

1. Must be enrolled in a minimum of 6/7 classes.
2. May not have had ISS or OSS for a major offense within a semester of being nominated.
3. Be a member of the class s/he is chosen to represent.
4. Have attended FOHS or OTMS at least one semester prior to being nominated.
5. Be actively involved in at least one extracurricular or co-curricular activity during the school year of nomination.
6. Have a cumulative GPA of 2.0 (C-) or above. (first semester Freshmen are exempt as they do not yet have a GPA)
7. Have an average attendance rate of 90% or higher for the current school year.

There are still unspoken rules about royalty most don’t know about, for example, no posters. From my experience as a senior, I saw posters plastered on every wall, every year. Learning that posters were banned surprised me but, apparently, this isn’t a new rule. People just started putting them up even though they weren’t supposed to.

What we can do in place of posters are slides for the three TVs in the Performing Arts Center, Cafeteria, and Media Center. Since it takes a long time for the slides to cycle, it’s important to make your slide stand out. Remember, those TVs display all of the candidates, on top of slides for everything else in our school.  

This year our school only had five Courtwarming King candidates so there was no first-round voting. I’ve noticed the number of candidates shrink each year when nomination comes around. Self-nomination can make selfless people feel a little narcissistic so it’s okay if you feel weird nominating yourself. In life, you have to advocate for yourself.

Being popular doesn’t mean you’ll win. It’s not necessarily about just knowing people, it’s knowing who people are. For your extracurricular activity, try interacting more with underclassmen because  every class is able to vote.

The new voting system is more fair and accurate. This is the first year we’ve done online voting. Before, we used paper ballots and there were a lot of concerns about cheating. It’s also way more convenient because you don’t have to wait until lunch to vote.

As a freshman, I thought royalty was reserved for jocks. Getting over that mental hurdle is the most important part of running. I had a lot of preconceptions about highschool from watching movies. It took freshman and sophomore year to really get over what I was told highschool would be and see highschool for what it is–a time to try things out and socialize.

So, I decided to run for Courtwarming. Not as a joke, not for my ego, just for the fact that I could do it. Sometimes you have to do things just to challenge yourself. Since I’m a senior, there isn’t a lot of time left in highschool. I may as well learn and try as many different things as I can while I can. With that philosophy, I didn’t care if I won or lost. I wanted to do it for the experience.