STUDENT NEPOTISM
June 2023
The year was 2000. I was attending Grover Cleveland High School. There were the class jocks, who thought they ruled the school but would soon be forgotten. The cheerleaders and the dance team were too obvious about how they put all of their value in their looks and social capital. We had the geeks, the academic team, and the film nerds but they were never under the impression that they were more important than they were.
I on the other hand wanted real power, true power. Student council president. While the other students were busy going to parties and having fun at pep rallies, I was running them. Everyone else had to have their mom call or have a doctor's appointment to get out of class. All I had to do was tell the teacher I had something to do for student council and I was free immediately.
I had been planning this run since my 7th grade year. I had the perfect track record, straight A’s in all my classes, I tutored the lower grades, had served countless community service hours and had been brown-nosing all the right bottoms. My minions Anna and Matt had been running surveys for months and I was 100% regarded as the most capable for the job. After this my path would be very straightforward. Just as my father was Student Council President, I would be too, and I’d attend Yale undergrad and eventually Harvard Law. My life was completely set, and it was exactly how I wanted it.
Today was the day I had been waiting for, election day. At 2:55 on this Tuesday, the 5th of September I would be immortalized forever in my title as Student Council President and my policies would secure my reputation.
I was sitting in Ms. Davenport’s 7th hour English class with my leg shaking vigorously as I awaited the announcement over the intercom.
Static broke through. I heard the principal, Mr. Brown, clear his throat.
"Good afternoon, students, I have the much-anticipated election results in front of me."
He rambled on with all the minor positions that I could care less about.
“Secretary is Elena Gilbert.”
“Spirit Officer, Johanna Mitchell.”
“Vice President, Gavin Brooks.”
Finally, he croaked, "And the Student Council President is John Brown."
I gasped. How could it not be me? I had done everything right only to be discounted by the principal’s own son. My future flashed before my eyes. Without this on my resume I could kiss the Ivy League colleges I had in mind goodbye. I could kiss law school goodbye. How would my father react? He was going to be furious with me.
I could feel my face starting to turn red, and hot tears started creeping out of my tear ducts. I grabbed my backpack and rushed out of my classroom. I didn’t want anyone to see me crack. I continued out the double doors and immediately got hit by the blinding light of a Texas end of summer day. I slumped into the driver’s seat of my car and lost control. My breathing and cries became erratic and it was hard to catch my breath. I started driving and ended up in the driveway of my home with no memory of getting there. I felt frozen and unable to face my father.
Author's Note and Bibliography
I based this story off of Rama when he was wrongfully exiled and had the title of king taken away from him. The story is told from the point of view of the character based on Rama. My inspiration for this story comes from a real-life experience similar to the story that I told. I grew up in a very small town and nepotism ran rampant and caused similar occurrences throughout my life and my friends’ lives. Student Council at my school was extremely competitive and a big deal. One of my friends was going to run for an esteemed position in Student Council and would have carried the vote over the other student who happened to be our advisor’s child. Our advisor changed the rules to specifically disqualify my friend and our advisor’s child won. I am aware that this probably sounds like a stretch and something I made up, but I promise it happened. These kinds of things happened all the time at my school and from what I can gather they happen at a lot of other small schools to. There are hardly ever any consequences for the actions either.
The specific part of Ramayana I am referring to is when Bharata is given the title of king instead of Rama. It was rightfully Rama’s title but is given to someone else because of politics.
I hope the reader catches the parallel about how disappointing it is to be wronged for a position that a person deserves. Whether that position is student body president or king.
Ramayana Part B, Laura Gibbs