On Tuesday, January 25^th, I sat down with Student Council President Zach Corbin for a quick conversation on how the year has gone, what he’s looking forward to, and other topics of interest to many within the student body. Zach generously took time to answer my questions and walked me through everything that I asked him about. Below, you will find answers to many burning questions that you didn’t even know you wanted answers to!

I started with the most burning of burning questions straight out of the gate.

“What are the plans for the Winter Formal?” I asked. This dance, never-before experienced by the current sophomores and freshmen, was last held in Febuary of 2020 right before the pandemic hit. Due to the recent spike in cases of the Omicron variant, speculation surrounding the fate of this year’s Winter Formal has been rampant.

Zach said that there has “been a lot of miscommunication largely due to the uncertainty of the future that we have right now and a lot of concerns, but right now we are looking at having it somewhere between March 5^th to the 12^th, possibly 11^th.”

That’s right. Winter Formal, as of now, is looking to be a go. Zach made sure to say, however, that he was “just told last week that its not going to happen in the Winter,” resulting in the March dates previously mentioned. “Febuary obviously isn’t going to happen,” he said. “Whether it’s on campus or off campus is going to be decided in about a week or so,” but he “would expect us to have one before prom.”

A post-prom ‘Winter’ Formal is also not out of the question. Zach mentioned that there have also been “talks of having one after prom… like a third dance… like a ‘Spring Informal.’” Zach finished by reminding me there there is still “a lot of work to do to get there but we’ll get there. I’m confident in our guys on Student Council.”

In terms of future plans, Zach is looking forward to another big dance: prom. “Prom is ready to go. We have a venue, theme, and options,” he told me. This is welcome news. Prom is a high school rite of passage and I was glad to hear that the groundwork for that has been laid. He said that he is “looking forward to spending the last semester with some of the greatest people I’ve ever met in my life.”

Next, I asked Zach about one thing that he has done this year that he is really proud of. “Not sure if I can take all the credit for this, but the community this year has been so much different,” he said. “Going into this year I was worried sick, particularly with the mascot change, and about how that was going to affect our community because I know a lot of people hated the nighthawk when it first came out. I was one of those people.” However, since then it has grown on him; he is “so proud of what the school community has done coming together and supporting each other.” He believes that “this is the best school community in the city of Cincinnati,” and that rallying around a less divisive mascot has helped to grow the school’s sense of community pride like never before.

Sporting event turnout, a historic issue, was also brought up. When asked how he feels about the turnout this year, he told me that he has “mixed feelings” and that “it does predominantly happen to be the female sports that have lower turnouts.” He says he “go[es] as much as [he] possibly can” but that “there’s definitely areas to improve… we strive for perfection.”

When asked about any ideas he has to increase turnout at sporting events, he believes that “themes tend to have greater turnout” and that students should keep an eye out for Daisy’s hype emails for sporting events; always a welcome addition to our inboxes.

Finally, I talked to Zach about his history with Student Council and what his vision is for the future of student leadership at Country Day. His freshman year, he ran unopposed for the Council but then lost two elections as a sophomore and junior. Losing an election for Student Council is painful, but not the end of the world, as Zach can tell you. His comeback story ended with his election last year.

His advice to students looking to run for an elected position at Country Day would simply be to “do it.” “I consider it my second favorite job behind being the quarterback. I love representing the Nighthawks in everything that I do,” Zach added.

A concern that he voiced to me was of the lack of minority students on the Council this year. He believes that a diverse community like Country Day deserves a diverse student government, but that, “there is a change to how Student Council will be next year and the positions of it… to hopefully increase diversity.” Those changes are yet to be finalized and announced.

Zach has “love[d] working with them [his cabinet],” and “love[s] the hell out of Keeler.” Keeler, which we were unable to hold last year, has been a welcome comeback of an old tradition, as well as bringing back in-person blue and white events.

Zach has overseen a tumultuous year and has tried to balance the pandemic with the restoration of Country Day traditions. “This school is just so great and it is an honor to represent it.”