To discuss the upcoming league talent show, a few students from the student leadership class attended a West Sequoia League (WSL) meeting in Caruthers, Jan. 25.
WSL meetings, which are designed to facilitate communication and cooperation between leadership teams, are held monthly throughout the year, culminating with an annual talent show, held at every school and concluded at FC.
At the beginning of the meeting, students played an ice breaker to introduce themselves to the students from the participating high schools. Soon after the meeting began, students brainstormed ideas for this year’s talent show theme and concluded on “Valley’s Got Talent.”
“This was the first time I attended a meeting,” leadership team member Trevor York, ’12, said. “It was a lot of fun to hear all of the great ideas people came up with even though it was the presidents, vice presidents and secretaries who did most of the talking. It was a little awkward though because I didn’t really know anyone outside of our school while [my classmates] knew some people from the other schools.”
ASB president Tatiana Fontes, ’10, says the meeting was very productive.
“The main purpose of these meetings is to share ideas,” Fontes said. “We are able to learn how the other schools do activities and bring them to our own school. At this meeting we decided the theme for the talent show, which is on Feb. 25.”
Before the students left for Caruthers, leadership advisor Rob Foshee challenged the students to have a purpose for the meeting.
“Before we left as a group we discussed what our goal was,” Foshee said. “We came to the conclusion that we wanted to be a positive influence to the other students and create relationships with them. We didn’t want to go there with the attitude of preaching, but if God opened an opportunity we would use it.”
During each WSL meeting, the hosting school gives a tour of the campus to the visiting students.
“Caruthers’ treasurer, Marissa, gave all of us the tour of the campus,” Dana King, ’12, said. “She reached out to us and professed her faith; it was so cool. Last year she competed as a freshmen in the talent show and seemed excited for this year’s show.”
Fontes says playing games with the other schools increased her enthusiasm for an upcoming basketball game.
“A bunch of us played knockout together since we had extra time,” Fontes said. “It was pretty exciting since Marissa was one of the girls basketball players on the Caruthers team and I beat her. This got me really pumped up because that Wednesday [Jan. 27] we played Caruthers.”
Besides discussing the theme for the talent show, FC students used the event as an opportunity to minister to other students.
“One of the students we prayed for was Nacho from Mendota,” King said. “He injured his back during basketball and now has a really bad limp. Everyone from our school gathered around him and put our hands upon him and began praying. It was amazing to share our faith with him and the other students.”
For more information about the talent show, read the Jan. 25 article, Talent show auditions commence.
