NHS Presidential Elections Throw LFHS Into Chaos

A Satire

Casey Murray

Editor-in-Chief Kathryn Pierce was found in this position by Forest Scout reporters early Tuesday morning after she was shot by a client of an unidentified campaign. Yes, our Editor-in-Chief was assassinated. It’s fine. At least you won’t get those emails anymore.

Casey Murray and Joey Goodsir
May 8, 2019

All quoted remarks in this article are not merely fabrications, they are fabrications of fabrications. This is a satire, a commentary on LFHS society and national politics.

 

LAKE FOREST— Among high school students, undoubtedly the most coveted position of political power is that of President of the Lake Forest High School chapter of the National Honor Society.

37 candidates — fully one-sixth of the chapter’s total membership — are seeking the highest title the free world has to offer in an election that has produced a mind-boggling degree of cronyism, votemongering, and various other activities that would likely make the director of the Federal Election Commission run for the door.

Approximately 88 candidates are running for election to at least one of the seven elected positions on the NHS Executive Board, according to a response document viewed by The Forest Scout. 11 of the candidates are running for every possible office.

“It’ll be fine!” said Corey Holmer, the chapter’s faculty adviser. “It’s a very wide field, all the candidates are great, everybody has been working hard, and I just hope there’s a fair race.”

Reports of hacking by the Computer Science department are completely false, according to a press release by the LFHS Hack Club. “All our programmers are totally under control and have no stake in this election whatsoever,” a club spokeswoman said.

Kevin Staunton, a junior at LFHS and presidential candidate, said that the Executive Board elections have changed his life.

“It’s surprising what a simple proposal to act as a check on Student Council will do to you,” Staunton said. “My grades, my pencilcase, even my dog — this campaign for the people has just ruined everything, and it’s not even for the people — everyone seems to be running against me in particular. And people say the Electoral College is rigged? Ha!”

The Staunton campaign is fiercely opposed by a broad coalition of parties for its relatively moderate stances that one strategist operating out of a Lake Forest cellar decried as “lukewarm crud.” The opposition has largely coalesced around the campaign of William Jennings Gardner, who launched his distinctly populist campaign with a rally in the Commons before school on Tuesday, in front of a record-setting crowd that put the Homecoming pep rally to shame.

Gardner’s campaign has drawn criticism for his vicious attacks on the top one percent of AP scorers and a call for a schoolwide register of Mensa members — “we need to redistribute the IQ points,” he told the roaring crowd, which stretched out the door and down to the senior parking lot.

“Our movement is yuge,” Gardner said at the rally, which was picketed by Lake Bluff protesters upset with his personal attacks on Village President Kathleen O’Hara. “Lots of people, good people, coming to demand freedom in this school. I alone will give the people what they want — universal parking, cheap cafeteria options, computers with personality. It’ll be great. You’ll see.”

Casey Murray
Publicist candidate Joseph William Goodsir III (unrelated to either author) stumps for the Gardner campaign in the DMT before a riveted sellout audience. Goodsir and Gardner had “wanted to run on a joint ticket, but it, like, doesn’t work that way,” according to Gardner campaign strategist Kenneth Murray (also unrelated to either author).

Gardner was undeterred by the departure of the Lake Bluff vote, which makes up “a wholly insignificant part of the electorate anyway,” he said. “They’re too busy swerving around potholes and deciding where to eat to, you know, vote.”

Perhaps the biggest victims of the election cycle thus far are the trees. Environmental Club reports indicate that an entire forest (or Lake Forest?) has been felled for campaign posters.

The hallways are blanketed in posters to such an extent that Student Council on Monday took the unusual step of enacting campaign regulations that were projected to “surely do something.” Unfortunately, the regulations were struck down as unconstitutional by the front office late Tuesday afternoon because they threatened to make the elections “less competitive.”

LFHS constitutional scholar John Kirages remarked that the profound policy disagreements and inter-organization fights laid bare by the current election cycle threaten to precipitate a constitutional crisis. In a statement to The Forest Scout, he demanded action “to prevent my line of work from becoming irrelevant.”

“We need strong action to end this chaos once and for all. People are somehow dying over an election to lead a club of 200 people in a small suburban high school. It’s time to stop. Students must stand together and fight for what’s truly valuable. Victory is not winning for personal gain, victory is winning for Lake Forest High School,” he told reporters in a follow-up interview.

Kirages was then interrupted by reporters questioning the legitimacy of his field.

“Hey, stop laughing,” he said. “It’s not funny. I’m done with this. Some integrity you people have. Do you work for The Forest Scout or some hacky gig that compares pop tarts to dumplings? I’m going to complain to the Editor-in-Chi — oh wait, she’s dead.”

Stay tuned to The Forest Scout for further attempts (but mostly failures) at election coverage.