Mia Harmon WLWWU FV1

Mia Harmon, this year's ASB president, discusses her previous position as an athletic commissioner and her main job of promoting athletic events and achievements. She expresses excitement about seeing school spirit grow and continuing the momentum from previous years. Mia mentions that homecoming is a big event and talks about the different locations and formats they have tried in the past. This year, they are excited to have a semi-formal dance in the main gym on a Saturday. Mia acknowledges the challenges of setting up the dance in the main gym due to other activities taking place, but emphasizes the importance of carefully planning and executing ASB events. She also mentions goals of focusing on the school's pillars, creating a high-spirited environment, and making the live roar more engaging. Mia expresses her excitement about being on the live roar and how it aligns with her future career goals in communication. Outside of being ASB president, she is also a cheer captain and hopes This is the Westland Weekly Wake-Up. My name is Nicholas. And I'm Garrett. Today we'll be joined by this year's ASB president, Mia Harmon. Hello, thank you for having me. Of course. So let's start off with asking you what positions you have last year? Last year I was one of our two athletic commissioners. Our other previous athletic commissioner graduated. Her name was Josie, but it was so much fun to work with her. And my main job was promoting athletic events and achievements to make sure all of our athletic students are noticed and their accomplishments are acknowledged. As president, what are you most excited to see happen this year? Oh my gosh, that is such a hard question because I feel like ASB just has so many cool events and really puts on so many things for the student body. So it would be hard for me to pick one specific event or activity, but I'm really excited to just see the school spirit grow. That's one of our main goals as an ASB this year because I feel like we have created such a good momentum over the past few years. And I know COVID feels like probably a century ago to all of us, but when you really think about it, my senior class is the first one that came back from COVID as freshmen. It's still a challenge every once in a while to get that school spirit up and try to restore old traditions with the same effect that it used to have. But the exciting thing for me this year is just really continuing that momentum and pushing the school spirit because we're all unique and we're all like special individuals, but as a school we are Lions. We're all Westland high schoolers, so it's important to keep in mind to unify. Is there anything students should be excited for this year? Oh again, that's such a hard question. Well, the first event that I can think of that we're really going to put on and push this year is homecoming. Obviously homecoming week is a big one for us. We have our homecoming spirit week, so tons of fun dress-up days. We have the homecoming football game and the homecoming assembly. We also have homecoming court, which is fun for all grades in the school because everyone gets to participate in that. And on top of that, we also have our homecoming dance and in the past years we've kind of played around with different locations and different ways of doing the dance. My freshman year we had one on the tennis court, which I'm sure all of our current seniors remember. And then we also tried one after the football game, directly after, which was casual in the main gym. Last year was the baseball field, which was fun, but this year we're super excited because we got a semi-formal dance in the main gym on a Saturday, which is something that ASB has been working to get for a long time. And we're very thankful for our amazing volleyball team that's working with us to make sure that we can both succeed in this space on that day. But that's my thing that I think most students will be most excited for coming up the soonest. We do have tons of cool events and I'm sure everyone will be excited for throughout the year. But yeah, homecoming dance, I hope to see everyone there. Were there any challenges setting up the homecoming dance in the main gym this year? There will be a challenge because we are such a big school and there's so many fun activities. And volleyball does have a tournament that they're hosting here, which is incredible. And I love to see all of our volleyball teams around the state or the district getting involved and competing and playing with each other. So we want to make sure that we're respecting their time in there, which means that throughout the week we will have to be staging a setup. That means that we will put decorations on top of the bleachers so that we don't interfere with volleyball's game. But we still can easily pull them down when the time comes. So I feel like everything ASB does has to be very carefully placed and very well thought out. Because our whole goal is to put on fun and exciting activities and events that bring a voice to students on campus, but also allow them to have the best high school experience possible. So with that being said, everything does have to be well thought out and carefully done, if that makes sense. What is your like to-do list or like list of goals look like for this year? Oh, that's a great question. I've mentioned a couple of them previously, like keeping the momentum and keeping the school spirit up. One of them as an ASB that we're really focusing on is our pillars. So if you go through the library you can see our pillars. We have six of them. But really enforcing those pillars and finding ways that we can do that as an ASB. So if you've noticed the first couple days back, ASB have worked to set up a very high spirited environment for everyone to come back to. So we have the streamers and the flags and the porches and the entryway. And they're all green and gold. We have a couple sparkly shimmery, I'm not exactly sure what they're called, a tassel looking thing around the pillars and student streets. So all those things we work to put them up because we find that it inspires students when they come back to school. It really gives them that environment where they're like, this is somewhere I can thrive. This is somewhere I want to be. It looks cool. It's exciting. Even if they're just small touches, it really helps. It also helps to create that community I was saying earlier, which is another one of our pillars. So that's really important to us as well. So finding all those ways that we can do the pillars is one of our big goals. Another goal this year is really enforcing the live roar and making sure that we can make it more engaging for all students. Sometimes if I'm the only one making announcements up there with my co-hosts, the other senior ASB officers, I can just go on forever and my voice starts to sound draining and I eventually become that woman that you listen to for meditation when you're falling asleep. So we're really working on integrating new aspects to the roar this year. We're trying to get a couple videos up there. I will really talk to students and also bringing in students from different clubs or activities so that they can have a voice and have a base for that voice when they're on the roar as well. So making sure everyone's watching live roar and making it more engaging is another one of our big goals. Are you excited to do the live roar next year? Well, this year I guess. Oh my gosh, yes. Yes, a million times over. Live roar is something that I watched as a freshman. And when I was a freshman, my brother was a senior here, and I remember coming home the first time and I thought, how do I get on that? And he explained to me, well, you're in leadership class, Mia, and then later on you can go to be on ASB. And if you're a senior, you can be on it every so often. But if you get to be a president, then you're on it every week. Oh my gosh, that is incredible. So yeah, the roar is something I've dreamed of for a while. And it's so crazy to me that that's actually going to be my face up there. But it's also something that I find might help me in my goals in the future. Because although college is next year, gosh, that's so much closer than it feels. But when I think about what I want to go into after high school, one of the many things I'm thinking about is going into a communication route. And maybe eventually being a newscaster. So I think that it's really cool if I decide to go that route. If I decide to go that route, it would be cool to have this experience now to help me in the future. Going back to college and senior year, outside of being president, what are you planning to do with your senior year? That's such a good question. Gosh, you guys are the best interviewers. Well, I am also one of our cheer captains here at Westland. We have two. It's me and Brianna Gunselman. And our cheer team this year is incredible. We won state last year. I'm not sure if everyone's aware, but that was super exciting for us. It was actually the first time in all of Westland High School history that our cheer team had won state. So that's something I'm really excited for senior year is the goal to keep that up and hopefully be back-to-back state champions, bring home another banner, hopefully get to do another ring. It would be just so exciting for us. But regardless, the senior year, I'm so excited to just be on that team. And captain is also something that I've dreamed about since I was in third grade. So having that this year also feels like a dream come true. And I'm so fortunate to have the opportunity to experience all these things and to cheer with these amazing girls and to be on ANC with all of our amazing commissioners and officers. And aside from my activities, I'm really just excited to experience high school. I have a sister who's a sophomore here, and she's been like my built-in best friend. I'm getting emotional. For like almost 18 years now, I'm almost 18, but yeah, she's my best friend in the world. And to be able to just go through senior year with her and have her by my side through the whole thing, I'm really going to soak in every moment of that. And every last moment I get with my other friends here who are also seniors, and going all the way down through juniors and freshmen as well. One last question, or maybe two. What's been your favorite ASB memory and then your favorite Wesleyan memory? Oh, my goodness. Oh, my favorite ASB memory. You know, ASB has become such a close-knit family in my mind, and one of those things that helps is our annual retreat. We kick off every year with a retreat in the summer. In the past it's been before senior sunrise. This year we didn't do that just because it didn't work with our schedule. We have around a two-day retreat. The rest of school we're talking about making plans for the upcoming year. And then following that, we have an overnight sleepover at one of our officers' houses. And it's not official, and it's not required by any means, but it's super fun to have ASB officers there. And so one of my favorite memories was probably this year. We all went over to Genevieve Westerbach's house for the sleepover, and we all just had so much fun there together. We ended up talking like this, or just asking questions rapid fire with one another. And it brought me a lot closer to students that I never talked to before I got on ASB, and I'm so excited now because I've realized how amazing all of them are and how great this year is going to be with them on this team. So that would probably be my favorite ASB memory, because it was such a great experience for our whole AC, our whole family. My favorite Westland memory, it's a hard one because I've had four years here now. I think I'm going to name two. So my first one, obviously, would probably be the feeling of winning state as a cheer team. It was so incredible to hear our team name called over the speakers. And that's something I think a lot of people don't realize as much, is how hard we work as cheerleaders. This summer, we have been going to 6 a.m. weight trainings every other day, and then afterwards, we have six to eight practices at night on the track, and that's been continuing for years. We have practiced at least three, four times a week. We also cheer at other games for other teams. But to be on that mat and feel like all the hard work is finally paying off and to make Westland history, it's just an undescribable feeling. So that would be my first favorite Westland memory. My second favorite is a little more personal to me, but it's when my brother graduated. So my brother was a part of the class of 2022. I mentioned him earlier. He has also been a big inspiration to me in my life, a big family person. You can't tell. He now is across the country. He goes to college at MIT in Boston. But he obviously is very smart. And so he graduated as valedictorian. So his graduation was in the Thorn Stadium, and he got to give his valedictorian speech. I guess this would count as a Westland memory because it's a Westland graduation, but that was so special to me to be there and see him giving that speech. I think it really connects me now as a senior and as president because I get to give a speech now at our graduation in 2025. It feels almost like a full circle moment. I had no idea that I'd end up here. I'm so thankful that I did. I'm so grateful. But, yeah, that memory of him giving that speech and coming to find us after and just how happy he was and having been there for him through his high school experience and seeing how much he loved it made me so excited for high school. I remember that feeling in that moment of just the eagerness to experience everything the school had to offer. That feeling in that moment would probably be my second favorite Westland memory. All right. Thanks so much for your time today. Thank you, guys. Is there anything else you want to add? No. Westland Wake Up is the best. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for listening to this week's edition of the Westland Weekly Wake Up. This has been a WLHSNow production. Don't forget to follow us on Instagram at WestlandWeeklyWakeUp for episode updates and exclusive content. For more articles and information, check out WLHSNow.com.