WEDHESDIiy, OCTOBER 31,20181 PAGE 10
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T his year, elon
UNIVERSITY’S Homecoming
will be celebrated with a diverse
Homecoming Court of seniors,
each as unique as they are committed
to their cause. A group of 20 students
— five males and 12 females — have
been nominated to represent their
organizations, class and Elon as a
whole as members of the court.
A monetary
ROYALTY
This is the first
year that the two
candidates with
the most votes,
regardless of
gender identity,
will be named
“Homecoming
Royalty.”
prize will be
awarded to the two
students elected
Homecoming Roy
alty, who will then
donate the money
to the philanthro
py of their choice.
This is the third
year the SGA will
follow a more inclusive model for
Homecoming Royalty that will elect
the two candidates with the most votes
— regardless of gender identity. Home
coming Royalty will be revealed at the
Homecoming football game Saturday,
Nov. 3.
Two of the court’s members, seniors
Mary Kennedy and Olivia Warhop,
said they were immediately excited to
have been nominated. Kennedy called
her mom to break the news.
“1 told her, and I think she started to
cry over the phone,” Kennedy said. “I
was just very happy to be a representa
tive of the senior class and this school
because I couldn’t love Elon more.”
Because 'Warhop’s all-girls high
school didn’t have a homecoming, she
was happy to be a part of her universi
ty’s homecoming.
But being nominated came as a sur
prise to some of the court’s other mem
bers.
Senior Jazmine Langley from Ra
leigh, North Carolina, said she never
expected to be recognized for her work
in Elon’s diversity and inclusion pro
grams.
“I was surprised, just because I’m
more concerned with my work on the
ground and the work that I’m doing
and less concerned about being rec
ognized,”
Langley said. “So, when I was
chosen I was like, this is kind of un
comfortable but nice.”
Senior Matt Sullivan was just as
confused to receive a nomination.
I was a little confused because my
friend Evan also applied for the court,
and he was originally not on the list,
and I was like, Tn what backwards
world did I get nominated and he
didn’t?”’ Sullivan said, “But then he got
on, so it was kind of funny.”
For senior Diego Pineda, running
for Homecoming Court was a chance
to also represent
the Latino com
munity as he said
he believes their
presence isn’t “as
known” on cam
pus.
Nearly all
the Homecoming
Court members
are involved with
campus organi
zations — in roles
spanning
leadership,
unteer and paid
positions in a
variety of depart
ments. For many
of the nominees,
at least one orga
nization is par
ticularly meaningful to them.
Senior Lauren Ventresca, a Teaching
Fellow who works with Elon Academy,
said she “really wanted to help [Elon
Academy] because that’s a local cause,
and it’s great then to see some of the
kids come to Elon and see them have
opportunities that they wouldn’t have
Otherwise had.”
Senior Mary Kennedy, who is both
a member of a sorority on campus and
part of the Panhellenic Association ex
ecutive board, has spent much of her
fall semester coordinating applications,
events and recruitment counselors for
the upcoming sorority recruitment.
of
from
vol-
u
I WAS JUST VERY
HAPPY TO BE A
REPRESENTATIVE OE
THE SENIOR CLASS AND
THIS SCHOOL BECAUSE
ICOULDNTLOVEELON
MORE.
MARY KENNEDY
SENIOR
Senior Hope Keone said
she is passionate about her work with
the Students Promoting Awareness.
Responsibility, Knowledge and Success
(SPARKS) program.
SPARKS is like my communi
ty, Keone said. “My group of people,
where I’m able to talk about the things
I am most passionate about because
I’m so passionate about health — espe
cially reproductive health rights — and
SPARKS inspires me to pursue what I
want to do in a really meaningful way.”
Whether connected
to their philanthropy
through a campus or
ganization or a personal
experience, all the nom
inees are dedicated to
their causes of choice.
Like Koene and
Langley, senior Ka
tie Mars has chosen a
philanthropy which re
lates to women’s rights,
health and empower
ment, but she said she’s
working to include all
genders in conversa
tions surrounding sex
ual assault and violence,
“The [organization]
that most directly relates
to the philanthropy I’m
running to support is my
position in the [Gender and LGBTQIA
Center],” Mars said. “So working on
the gender-based violence preven
tion board — it’s new this year, we are
worfang with eight students who are
on the board - and I’m a coordinator
or engaging men and masculinities.
Its a really interesting position being
a woman and focusing on engaging
men in these conversations and talMng
about it, framing the issue as [not] just
a womens issue if we’re talking about
^xual violence on college campuses.
This IS really everyone’s issue.”
are^bT^'^''Sassaman
are both running to support the Na-
tional Alliance
on Mental Illness.
“It’s a cause that I’ll say is really close
to my heart and my family’s heart, just
from different members being affect
ed by a variety of mental illnesses, and
so it’s just something that I hold really
personal to me,” Sassaman said.
Three nominees have chosen to sup
port disease research foundations after
personal experiences.
Senior Anna Cosentino said she
plans to donate the prize money to the
Parkinson’s Foundation in support of
her father.
“My dad actually has Parkinson’s
Disease, and he was diagnosed while
I was here at Elon, so it’s something
that’s been part of my Elon experi
ence,” Cosentino said. “I almost took
the semester off, but the people in the
community here — the people in my
sorority and my professors — every
one’s been so helpful, so it seemed like
a really good opportunity to continue
and keep getting that support.”
Pineda said he plans to donate to
the No Stomach for Cancer organiza
tion because his mother was diagnosed
with stomach cancer during his senior
year of high school.
“For that to happen to someone who
was about to graduate high school and
go into college and be the first person in
my community, it was really hard try
ing to balance that,” Pineda said. We
all think cancer and we think breast
cancer, we think St. Jude’s, but there are
so many types of cancer, so I hope that
my little line with my name and my
CANDIDATES
20
students have been nominated to
represent their organizations, class
and Elon as a whole as members of the
court.