The Buzz

The following transcript is from an interview recorded prior to the 2024 Class of 2025 Junior Prom. We delve into the thought process and planning behind the iconic event and hear from high school class officers about their anticipation. An inside look into the inner workings of officer powerblock with fundraising and planning, perfect timing for the upcoming student elections this year!

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The following interview was conducted by Sucheta Srikanth.

INTERVIEWER: So we are here with Gracie Higgins. State your position in the school, please. 

GRACE: I am secretary of the class of 2025.

INTERVIEWER: Good to know, good to know. Here are a couple questions for you. How was the prom planning process for you in general? 

GRACE: For me, I had a really good time with it. Going into it, I thought it might be a little bit stressful, and it was a lot of work to take on, but being able to have that control is something that I do enjoy. Being able to plan something that I know is going to be a fun event for the class is really rewarding. I like being able to meet new people, like the prom planners, and being in touch with school administrators is just a fun way to get involved in the school community.

INTERVIEWER: Are there any things that you learned this year that you plan to implement or change next year’s prom planning process? 

GRACE: Yeah, definitely. Uh, so going into it, it’s a pretty daunting process just with trying to get as much participation as possible.

INTERVIEWER: Now is that participation from your fellow officers or from the actual student body? 

GRACE: Definitely from the student body. Um, the officers were great. We’re a very  collaborative group, and we work really well together. Over the course of the year, we’ve gotten really close, and it’s easy to communicate on a day-to-day basis. 

[Thomas Gazda, a fellow junior and friend of Grace’s, interrupts and heckles Grace, much to her dismay.]

GRACE: So, um, that wasn’t an issue, but I would say, um, the biggest, uh, portion… Tommy, can you get out? Uh, the most important thing was our…Stop. I’m serious. Leave. 

INTERVIEWER: Do you want to pause and start again? 

GRACE: No, I’m good. 

[T. Gazda exits with a laugh.]

GRACE: Collaboration wasn’t an issue whatsoever, but I would say, um, the organizational aspect is the most important part, in my opinion.

INTERVIEWER: And do you think that’s something you’re good at? 

GRACE: Yeah, I think that’s probably one of mine and Ava’s biggest strengths, and that’s what we focused on most of the time. Just being able to set up specific dates when we knew we were going to be having meetings with administrators, our advisor, Mr. Kane, setting up times and places where we’re going to be selling tickets, making sure that we had all of our forms, whether that be for, um, the seating requests or allergies, any of that type of thing, or setting up a spreadsheet to create the tables and make sure that we have everyone’s contracts, IDs, tickets, all that type of stuff.

INTERVIEWER: Now, you talked a little bit about how that’s primarily where you and Ava worked. Now, we wanted to just ask, like, how your collaboration process was with the four of you. Did you guys divide and conquer? Like, how did that kind of work? 

GRACE: So, we would FaceTime a good bit to talk about what we were doing because we’re all very busy during school, but we definitely utilized PowerBlock as well. Even when we were sitting down at the table selling tickets, that’s a time where we could just talk about what we wanted to do. Outside of school, we met twice with Fabiana, who’s our event coordinator at Ultra Chic, and she helped us pick out a lot of what we were doing. We had talked about the theme, and me and Ava had thought of what the theme was going to be, and we just cleared that with Mahdi [President] and Owen [Vice President]. A lot of what the two of them did involved getting the vendors, so they had negotiated contracts with the DJ, the photo booth, the dance floor, and that also was intertwined with Fabiana. Negotiating prices down is a big thing because our budget is limited. Unlike a corporate event, we don’t have that type of funding, and we did do a lot of fundraising this year, but negotiating down prices is going to make our tickets cheaper and our profit higher.

INTERVIEWER: So overall, what it sounds like is the communication amongst the four of you, as well as your negotiating and communication skills with the outside kind of people, was just very strong in this process. That’s good. Have you taken any inspiration from other school proms or previous year’s proms for either the theme or the foods, things like that? Have you taken any inspiration?

GRACE: Yeah, we definitely looked through a lot of what our school has done in the past and other towns, just looking at different people’s social media, but in all honesty, we had done a lot of surfing the web. We were on Pinterest a lot, and that’s when we stumbled across the Starry Night theme, and we took it and ran with it in a different way. There were a lot of themes that had used different backdrops and stuff, but we wanted a classier look, so we kind of just wrapped it in with the color scheme that we were using, and it worked out really nice.

INTERVIEWER: What are you most excited about for prom? 

GRACE: I think just being able to take the time and actually enjoy what we spent so much time and effort developing is going to be really rewarding. To be able to see such a big event come to life is an experience that I haven’t had yet. I’ve done a lot of small fundraisers in my almost two years of being an officer, and it’s awesome to see those get off the ground and people being able to enjoy them like the dodgeball tournament or “Kiss a Senior Goodbye,” but something like this I’ve never been a part of, and it’s really exciting to be able to see it come to life.

INTERVIEWER: How long have the four of you either formally or informally been starting this planning process? 

GRACE: We started in August, so we got together before school started, and we laid out the fundraisers that we were going to be doing throughout the entire year and put them on a schedule, and we decided when we were going to have our first meeting about prom. I think that was February. Early February was when we really buckled down and started having meetings with Fabiana at Hillview Ultra Chic, but even before then we had already decided what our theme was going to be. We decided on the theme in August, and we made some vision boards. 

INTERVIEWER: You kind of already touched upon the theme. Is there anything else you want to include about that? 

GRACE: Yeah, it’s going to be a starry night theme inspired by Vincent van Gogh. It’s a darker color scheme mixed with some lanterns. There’s uplighting and white roses, lanterns, candles. It’s pretty classy.

INTERVIEWER: What do you think is the most difficult part or any complications in the prom planning process? 

GRACE: It was definitely difficult to get everyone in the student body to get their tickets purchased and their contracts and IDs in a timely manner. We had given, I think, two weeks’ notice that the UniPay link was activated and people could start purchasing tickets. As well as doing that, if you were bringing a date from outside of North Reading, you had to bring in an ID, an identification, and a contract, as well as a contract for yourself as an NRHS student. People just took their time getting it in, in a sense, but in the end we were able to get them all and it worked out all right. 

INTERVIEWER: What do you think people, like the student body, will be most impressed about prom when they go see it? And this is the junior class we’re referring to, largely. 

GRACE: That’s a good question. I would say just the consistency of the theme. I think in a lot of ways it’s just shown in everything that we have. All of our decorations look really nice and flow together really well. I think the uplighting is going to be really cool. Last year’s theme [for junior prom] was enchanted forest, so it was less about lighting and more about flowers. We have the flowers and we were also partnered with a lighting service, so I think that should look really nice and be exciting. 

INTERVIEWER: Is there anything you plan to improve on for next year? 

GRACE: I would say just starting even earlier. I know we already have our theme picked out for next year, or we’re between two themes right now, but just starting the actual process of we do get to pick a new venue, so we don’t have to go through Hillview for senior prom, so that’s going to be a big decision that we have to make. If we can have that decided by August and our theme and just continue by making that vision board early, I think that just getting the whole process off the ground earlier will allow for it to be a smoother process. I think if we could move that contracts and IDs onto an online model, it would be easier for people to do instead of having to deal with turning in things in person with absences and taking people from out of school. It might just be easier to do it that way. 

INTERVIEWER: That actually leads us to our next question you touched upon. We were wondering if you had any ideas for the prom theme next year that you would want to share and surprise us.

GRACE: I’m not going to disclose it right now because we are between two and we want it to be a surprise for next year, and it’s also going to be dependent on the venue that we decide. The senior prom this year is in an outside venue. It’s out of town. I’m sure that the senior advisors will be very helpful in allowing us to do that since it’s something that we wanted to attempt to do. Deciding the theme based on the venue is going to be a big portion of what we’re doing, but I want it to be a surprise, so I won’t say. 

INTERVIEWER: What do you think about the prom court selection process? Explain it a little bit and then give your thoughts on how we pick the royals.

GRACE: So the prom court is decided by the teachers and administrators that are chaperoning the prom. There’s seven teachers or administrators that will be chaperoning the prom. I want to make sure that I list the right people. Let me pull up my GoogleSheet. Google Sheets is my favorite thing in the world, it’s a girl’s best friend. We don’t get to vote on it, unfortunately, but Mr. Loprete, Mrs. Alonzo, Mr. Kane,  Mrs. Hargrove, Mrs. Kerrigan, Mrs. Tully, and Mr. Owens will be in attendance, and they’ll vote on who they think should be on the court based on their attitude and overall character in school and on the night of prom.

INTERVIEWER: And your thoughts, any opinions about that, any things you would like changed?

GRACE: I think that it would be cool to have our own vote on the night of prom, but the court has been decided by the teachers and administrators for a long time now, and I’m not sure why that adaptation was made. 

INTERVIEWER: Maybe something like we have an initial vote, and then the teachers go through it?

GRACE: Yeah, we could go full U.S. style here. We could do popular vote, and we could do the House of Reps, which would be the teachers. We could see how that goes. You’ve got to get that majority. Something like that, yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Think about that for next year, I guess. So for fundraising for senior prom, have you guys thought of any new ideas, or are you going to use similar fundraisers? 

GRACE: Yeah, so we’re definitely going to reuse what we’ve done. We started a pretty big trend here with our tournaments. So we did dodgeball, and we did 2K, which is a basketball video game tournament, and we’re planning on doing another one in the spring of this year. So we’re definitely going to reuse those. They were really successful this year. Bake sales definitely are a big source of income there. We also made the “Kiss a Senior Goodbye.” We talked to some of the senior officers, and they have a Mother’s Day flower basket fundraiser that they do every year, and they said that they were going to leave us to continue it. So that will be a big one for us.

INTERVIEWER: So that’s like – you’re able to buy flowers for Mother’s Day through you guys? 

GRACE: Yeah, exactly.

INTERVIEWER: And then I know that you’re not going to tell us what the prom theme for next year is, but is it going to be similar to your options to the Starry Night theme? Describe both your options in three or four words, just like what you would explain it as.

GRACE: Next year’s theme is – Nostalgic. Nostalgic. Definitely. Classy?

[Ava Levine, Class of 2025 Treasurer, entered at this point of the interview and gave her thoughts.]

AVA: Kind of magical. I honestly would describe it as magical. You can quote me.

GRACE: It will be magical. Nostalgic. Classy. Magical.