The new homecoming court has recently been announced on the John F. Kennedy Official Instagram Page.
Homecoming has been an American tradition for over a century and has since been a tradition held here at John F. Kennedy for a period of time now.
This year’s new candidates consisted of senior student runners Amelia Nylander, Alicia Jackson, Grace Hernandez, Sophia Edeliant and Yessica Torres for our female runnerups. As for our males, Kabir Barkzai, Alen Moshken, Diego Avalos-Daniels, Sean Whitfield, and Quinn Bryant.
Upon speaking to the runnerups, they’re all excited and delighted to be given the opportunity to be a part of the court. A couple of the candidates were interviewed, such as runnerup Kabir Barkzai, who was a previous candidate in the 2024-2025 junior prom says, “I think it’s an honor to be on the court… I feel that Homecoming court is not something everyone gets to be on.”
When questioned about thoughts on their fellow runner-ups, Diego Avalos-Daniels told the Clarion reporters, “I feel like they’re definitely good competition, either for their like attributes as a student and people as well as just their campaign strategies themselves.”
The approaches students are taking to convince others to vote for them consist of the traditional approaches of posters, like Sean Whitfield, Amelia Nylander, and Quinn Bryant. Whereas others are taking a different approach to social media advertisement, like Diego Avalos, Grace Hernandez, and Kabir Barkzai; @vote4kabir, and @vote4graceanddiego on instagram.
Grace Hernandez, a senior, an ASB member, and a Homecoming Queen candidate, is encouraging students to vote for her by giving out glasses, passing around a sign to take pictures with, and spreading the word. Hernandez feels “really honored” to be chosen as a Homecoming Queen candidate. She describes the other nominees as “really nice people” and explained that most of the candidates are also a part of ASB. She feels that everyone is deserving of this title, and even if she doesn’t win, she’ll be happy for whoever does. She will be voting for her boyfriend, Diego Avalos, for Homecoming King.
Sophia Edeliant, a senior, an ASB member, and a Homecoming Queen candidate, is feeling good about the upcoming Homecoming election. For almost four years, she’s been an active member of ASB and has contributed a lot to the community and Kennedy in general. Edeliant loves everyone she’s running against, saying, “all of them are really good friends of mine.” She will either be voting for Amelia Nylander or Grace Hernandez for Homecoming Queen.
