Senior Class Board members Katelyn Menas, public relations; Adam Gentry, secretary; Sarah Blase, president; Amy Kudron, vice president; and Christie Keller, treasurer, know what it is like to give themselves headaches from brainstorming, have their fingers cramp from cutting decorations, and spend hours setting up the field house every day leading up to the dance.

Most students who go to the Homecoming dance do not realize the time and effort Senior Class Board puts into making the dance a success.

“It is a huge task to take on,” Sharon Price, Senior Class Board sponsor, said. “[The students] do a lot of prep with getting the DJ and setting up the dance so that everybody likes it. They also are the creative people who come up with how they want things to be designed and implemented for decorations.”

Due to Homecoming being early in the school year, Senior Class Board starts planning and electing leadership roles as early as the first meeting in September.

Sarah Blase, senior and newly elected Senior Class Board President, is excited to make Homecoming the best for students this year.

“I’ve always loved homecoming,” Blase said. “I like the idea how I get to see the behind the scenes of it and gear it towards what I like and what I think other people will enjoy music and decorations-wise.”

Senior Class Board members have a personal sense of pride, which motivates them to make the dance appeal to the entire student body.

“This is my last year of high school and it has gone by so quickly,” Adam Gentry, senior and Senior Class Board secretary, said.  “I really like Senior Class Board because I get to help plan what I am involved in. This is my last homecoming, I’ll never have one again [so] I want to make it memorable.”

Along with making the dance memorable, Senior Class Board are like the masterminds who plan the dance, according to Price.

“It sounds like it is not a lot, but it is a huge task,” Price said. “Once [students on the board] get their idea and basic template and designs implemented, they go and decide what their role is.”

Although the Homecoming dance falls on Senior Class Board’s shoulders, they try to get all the other class boards involved as much as possible.

“Each board is assigned a specific area [of the school] and they let their creative juices flow and decorate,” Price said. “The goal of doing that is to get all the boards involved and let the freshman, sophomore, [and]  junior boards see what senior year [entails. We] want them [to] look at what they have to look forward to. I give my seniors committee roles to serve as peer leaders through this process.”

After watching how the Homecoming dance turned out in prior years, Blase looks forward to use her role as President to make improvements.

“I am able to take the issues I saw in the past and be able to fix them,” Blase said. “It is senior year and you always want it to be the best, so I am hoping that follows through and [the dance] goes really well.”

Senior Class Board’s job is not just decorating and planning, however.

“They also do the ticket sales,” Price said. “There is a lot of behind the scene stuff that people do not know, [and] anything they feel they need to add, they go and do a final touch up [to] make things flow.”

Students on the board focus on their many jobs during the months leading up to Homecoming, and try to have everything run smoothly. This is one of the reasons why they have always been in charge of the dance aspect, according to Price.

“Everyone thinks that Prom is seniors’ last hurrah, and yes it is, but Homecoming is more the seniors’ dance,” Blase said. “Prom is the realization that we [seniors] are leaving. [Homecoming] is the realization to make the most of it, and to take a hold of the time we have at Lake Zurich and making it the best that we can.”