Hundreds of students from across East Texas came together on March 9 for one sole purpose: Spring Forum. This year’s forum was hosted by StuCo at Williams Memorial for councils across the district.

In order to prepare for an occasion so large, Student Council had to start working hard in advance. Students formed committees to complete jobs that were necessary to hold an effective meeting.

“We prepared for Spring Forum for a while, but the night before some StuCo members met up at the church and made cookies, casseroles, fruit salads and much more,” junior class Secretary Anna Catherine Boudreaux said. “We cooked all night and put up decorations all around the church. Overall, Spring Forum was a great success due to the help we had from everyone.”

The theme for the event this year was “Helping the Homeless.” StuCo members rose to the occasion to improve their community and help those in need.

“Each school helped by bringing different toiletries, washcloths, shirts, gloves and various items to donate to the homeless,” junior class Historian Anna Graves said. “One of our activity sections at Spring Forum was to make kits to give to our local homeless shelters. All of the kids came together to help fill the bags with the items.”

Not only did the event help citizens within the community, the meeting also created an environment that unified the students in the district.

“We got to know people within our district and voted on schools for district offices,” freshman Logan Snell said. “We did various leadership activities and learned many StuCo traditions from other campuses.”

Because Texas High StuCo is running for a state office, this event was also a way for them to share their platform.

“Texas High is running for Vice President of the Texas Association of Student Councils,” sophomore Ricky Cooks said. “I think that Spring Forum is going to help us communicate with the people in our district more so that they will be familiar with us when we get to the state conference. This way we will hopefully get more votes.”

Overall, the student council feels that the Spring Forum was exceptionally beneficial to Texas High and the other schools that attended.

“We had about 500 kids attend from across the state,” StuCo adviser Susan Waldrep said. “Our students were in charge of ten different groups, and it was very well organized. The kids who came to visit took a lot of bonding skills from the forum which our district needs to do more of. I think everyone enjoyed it and had a good time.”