The next two House events are Amazing Race on May 7 and Houndstock on May 14. Starting Apr. 11, band applications for Houndstock with tryout dates and times will be available in the Activities Office. Meanwhile, though, House is supporting the Japanese exchange program with this school’s sister school, Seikyo Gakuen, and having a donation drive to support cancer research in Africa.

House sponsor Sarah Wolff said that she thinks student government should support everyone’s activities. “We did the Neon Dance for the basketball team and we’ve done tailgates for both the basketball and football teams,” Wolff said. “The Japanese exchange program contacted us to see if we could bring members to see the Japanese students perform, and we also performed for them with our Ambassadors and the line dance.”

Cabinet member and senior Zijazo Smith said that House felt it was important to make the exchange students feel welcome. “As student government, it’s obviously important to participate in whatever is coming through the school, whether we are running the event,” Smith said. “House made a group effort to attend, and the overall turnout was great.”

Also, according to Wolff, House is collecting dresses for a dress auction to support cancer research in Africa. The dress auction is in memory of Caroline Symmes, a girl from Carmel, IN who passed away from a very rare form of cancer called Wilms’ tumor.

“Her parents are running the dress auction in her memory and they’re donating all the money to cancer research in Africa because Wilms’ is most prevalent there,” Wolff said. “We’re going to be collecting dresses from House members.”

According to Smith, House has begun its preparation for Amazing Race and Houndstock. “Amazing Race is a newer event, modeled after the TV show of course, that seems to be fitting itself into our permanent agenda,” Smith said. “Right now, we’re further along with Amazing Race than with Houndstock, given their respective dates, but both are in the works.”

“The events we do are diverse,” Wolff said. “The people who go to Amazing Race might not go to Houndstock. They are both different to appeal to different preferences of students, so we can get everyone involved.” By David Zheng