Shafer, Schritter Elected To State Positions In IASC
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David Slone-dslone@timesuniononline.com
Two Warsaw Community High School Student Council members are taking their leadership abilities to the state level by following their dreams. During the Indiana Association of Student Councils Representative Assembly Tuesday in Indianapolis, junior Cody Shafer was elected as IASC president for 2013-14. It’s the first time any student from Kosciusko County has been elected to the president position, Shafer said. He was the first WCHS student elected to a state office when he was chosen as the Northeast Indiana district representative for the 2012-13 term. “I went in the direction of my dreams,” Shafer said. “I knew it would benefit me.” Also Tuesday, sophomore Blake Schritter was elected to replace Shafer as the Northeast Indiana district representative. Shafer is currently the WCHS junior class president and Schritter sophomore class president. Their duties for the IASC for 2013-14 begin in June. Schritter said the Representative Assembly is when all the student councils get together and primarily vote for new office holders. They also hear a keynote speaker. Schritter said he chose to run for state office “just because I wanted to be more involved. With the state position, I have the opportunity to affect more lives in a positive way.” He said his goals will include increasing membership of schools into the IASC. “I knew what Cody was doing and I was kind of curious, so I ran because of Cody,” Schritter commented. “Last year I was the first from Warsaw High School to get the district position from our school,” Shafer said of why he decided to run for state president. “I thought about it long and hard. I love being in IASC and I can achieve so much in it. I can meet my goals in it.” His goals will be to increase membership into IASC, increase student participation and make it more beneficial for student councils to be a part of the state organization. As a district representative, Shafer said he added three more schools to IASC in the Northeast district. If the IASC can make more student councils aware of them and the benefits of belonging, more students will join, he said. Being state officers, Shafer and Schritter must attend six executive committees per term. As president, Shafer also will have an extra four meetings for the state board. “At the same time, I will travel to other schools to help them out,” he said. While some student councils have to have fundraisers for projects, other schools have so much money they don’t have to have any fundraisers at all. Shafer said he wants to figure out how student councils work at different schools so he can help all student councils be better. To serve at the state level, a student must be on their school’s student council. The WCHS elections for the 2013-14 school year have not been held yet. However, Shafer plans to run for student body president and Schritter plans to run for junior class president. Being elected to the state level required Shafer and Schritter to get through two elections and to give speeches. They both passed out items like buttons, candy and T-shirts to the other voters. Campaigning started about 9 a.m. Tuesday. “It was a really tough run. It was phenomenal,” Shafer said. His opponent, Hannah Walters, was named vice president. Upon being named president, Shafer’s first thought was, “Did I really get this?” He then shook everyone’s hand and had to give an impromptu acceptance speech. “When I was up there, I kind of gave a Grammy kind of speech – ‘I just want to thank you for all your support,’ that kind of thing,” Shafer said. Schritter said being elected was a surreal experience. For his speech, he talked about drive and how that makes your ambitions become reality. Without drive, he said, it’s just nice thinking.
