By: Michaela Etienne
Gracie Darlington, is part of a big family, she is the 4th born out of 7 kids. Her father has been a football coach at Apopka High School since 1999. She has been apart of the Blue Darter family since before she could even talk. She is the current SGA President at Apopka High School. Gracie’s sister Molly was the SGA president back in 2015. Not only is Gracie apart of SGA, she is also an involved NHS Member, FCA Member, Flag Football Player, and is the Cheerleading Captain. She’s also the Worship Leader of the youth group at her church.
Gracie will be the 4th member of her family to graduate from Apopka High School. She is planning to attend Scarborough College at Southwestern Baptist Theology Seminary, located in Fort Worth, Texas. Scarborough College isn’t just a bible school, it’s also a school to help people get ready for full time ministry or any potential careers dealing with the church. Gracie will be attending their undergraduate program in order to obtain her bachelor degree in arts and humanities. One of the reasons why she likes the school is that her degree is viable inside and outside of the school.
What made you decide that you wanted to be in SGA?
So I saw my sister be apart of it before me, and I saw everything that they were apart of and just the kind of fun that they had running and determining the school spirit. I watched my sister be apart of it and how much fun she had and then she was actually president when I was a sophomore my first year of SGA, so just watching everything they did at the school–I just wanted to be apart of it.
Why did you run for SGA President?
That’s a good question. After watching my sister be president, and then Trinity Tran be president last year, it kind of inspired me. My sophomore year I was an officer. I was the fourth position. Then my junior I was the treasurer, and as we were ending SGA last year I was kind of thinking through my responsibility and my gifts and talents and skills, and I just thought that I would be a good fit for the position and that I could do well by SGA.
How will you help improve Apopka High School this year?
I mean, I think in general SGA has done a good job kind of maintaining school spirit, not that previous classes have let that down, but just almost maintaining the energy and the school spirit, whether that’s encouraging the student section on Fridays, at volleyball games, and at basketball games. School spirit brings unity to the school because we all can kind of like identify with Apopka High School, and you know there’s no distinction, there’s no separation there, and we can all come and be spirited for our school.
Homecoming is approaching early this year, but is there any detail or information you can tell us?
So Spirit Week will start September 18. It’s…Monday and…will go to the 22nd and end with Crazy Blue and White Day, and then we have our Homecoming parade after school and the football game that night where we announce the king and queen. We have the court session and then the dance will be the 23rd.
What was the hardest thing to plan for Homecoming?
We have 55 members of our club, so the hardest thing probably is getting everybody organized, planning Homecoming, and meeting deadlines. We’re having to go into everything because the dance is very early, so planning and organizing our big ol’ club has kind of been hard. I think probably another difficult thing, and Hope will agree, would be picking different spirit days and designing our Powder Puff shirt to match the theme of the dance and venue. Basically, trying to do it in a way that’s best for the students so that everybody can enjoy themselves.
What will be the themes for the week?
Monday is movie Monday and to kind of clarify, with that is our theme for the dance, which is Hollywood Walk of Fame. So within our theme days we wanted to cover kind of the aspect of Hollywood. Movie Monday kind of combines celebrity fictional characters into one–anybody with in the movie industry is fair game for someone to dress up as. If you wanted to dress up as an actor or a character within a movie, that is what Monday will be. Sports Day is set in stone on Tuesday every year, you can be any sports player, whatever you want to do if you’re underclassmen, and Powder Puff girls wear their Powder Puff outfit to school, and then we finish that day with the Powder Puff game that night. Then Wednesday the 20th is Rock n Roll Wednesday, kind of the other side of the LA Hollywood kind of feel, so that’s why we’re calling it Rock n Roll Wednesday. We like the flow of that saying, but it also kind of broadens and includes any genre of music so anybody within the music industry that someone one would like to dress up as. So it just doesn’t have to be rock and roll bands, it could be Beyoncé or whoever you want it to be. So then Thursday for the underclassmen is Tacky Tourist Day and then for seniors it’s Kings and Queens–we rule the school.