On the 17th of November from 9 to 10:30 in the morning, a meeting was held at Seton Catholic High School involving three schools in the Trico League Athletic District: Castle Rock, Seton Catholic, and King’s Way Christian. The remainder of the schools in the Trico League district were informed and invited to this meeting, but were unable to attend due to weather, scheduling issues, or distance. This is the first time that King’s Way has been involved in a meeting like this since before COVID hit in 2020. Marcus Janzen, the Vice Principal of King’s Way, stated that this meeting was held “mostly to get leadership teams together in the athletic district to build relationship, comradery, and throw different ideas around.”

One factor that made Seton Catholic an ideal host was Carol Patton, the Vice President of Student Life at Seton Catholic, who was selected to lead the meeting due to her previous experience leading similar meetings.  Carol Patton stated that she had planned and directed these types of events when she worked at La Center High School.

Like other schools that have participated similar events, the elected officials of the leadership teams attended this meeting. Natalie Oneil, King’s Way’s Student Body Treasurer, informed why not everyone in the leadership classes attended: “many schools have over 50 people in their leadership classes which would make the meeting too large.” Patton agreed with this sentiment, but added, “I had planned certain activities for certain elected representatives in the leadership classes.” These activities involved ice breakers, sharing ideas for dances and game themes, and more. The first activity the students participated in was an ice breaker game involving a rubber chicken. The students would throw the rubber chicken around the room and whoever had the chicken must share their name, leadership position, and their favorite dessert. After all of the students shared, they broke off into groups with the other students that have the same position. 

Overall, all of the interviewees agreed that this meeting was productive and proactive. This meeting is the first of many to be held in the next few years. The next leadership meeting between these schools will be held at King’s Way Christian High School this upcoming February. The administrators of the Trico League High Schools will be having conferences in order to try and find a specific date. Continuing these conferences between administrators will hopefully cause more schools to participate in these leadership meetings. Just as Janzen stated, as these meetings progress, “they will start to take the curtain away so we can learn about the other schools in our district and build a stronger community bond.”