The walkway into the gym is dimly lit and extravagantly decorated. Students dressed in their best dresses and suits (or sweats cause this is Palmer High School) line up to hand in their tickets and go into the even more beautiful gym. For most students at Palmer this is where a dance begins, but for the secretary of social, this is the end.
It’s a few weeks until the next dance, and Briana Bueno, this year’s S.O.S. is hard at work planning. Though it might seem simple to some, planning a dance has many steps and takes lots of preparation. Now that she’s had the date and theme approved by the school, Briana can begin working on the fun stuff. When I talked to her, she was hard at work designing the ticket, and brainstorming ideas for how to decorate. But planning a dance is much more than just making decorations. Though that’s a big part of it, there’s so much more that goes into every dance. Things like booking a photo booth, finding chaperones, and following a strict budget, make it the kind of job only a few people can do and pull off well. And Briana is one of those few people, she’s type A enough to get all the logistical things done, but still creative and artistic enough to put on a beautiful and cohesive dance.
As the day of the dance approaches, Briana is working on ordering supplies for decorations, dividing up the rest of the student council into groups for the day of the dance when they set up, and making sure everything is going according to plan. For the next few weeks she will be incredibly busy with all the work it takes to plan and execute a dance.
But the hardest part of planning a dance is other people. After pretty much every dance there’s at least one person complaining about not liking the theme, or the decorations, or wishing something has been different about it. And I’m sure we’ve all heard members of the student council complaining about all the work they have to do setting up for the dance (I know I have). But the setting up of the dance is the final step in a months-long process that Briana has been the head of since the beginning.
But even with all the hard work and dealing with people not recognizing it, and how hard it is to get everything done and done as well as Briana can, being the S.O.S. is such a fun role. There’s something so special about seeing your ideas come to life, and getting to plan and execute a dance from the very beginning.