Roman Haen Q&A
Watch or read this interview with our new Student Body President.
The following is a transcript of the above video. If you cannot view the video, click here.
Hi. I’m Roman Haen. I was elected president of Sweet Home Student Government. I am in grade 12, I’ve been in Sweet Home since first grade and yeah.
What do you think your best strength is when it comes to student government?
When it comes to student government I think my best strength is problem solving. I’m [a] very problem/solution oriented person. When I have an issue I will always work hard to come up with solutions that will benefit us and work in our favor. I also think I’m pretty good at negotiation and figuring out what would work best for everyone. Personally working with the school board, I think that would- I have a lot of advantages, with the ability, with my negotiation skills, and getting things that we want at Sweet Home.
What made you want to run for president?
Well part of it was I hoped to one day be a congressman in my future. The experience in being able to campaign, and plan, and figure out what would work best to sell to different people, that was a very big, good experience for me. As well as I believe I have a lot of constituents, I have a lot of people who I think would want me to run and want me to fight for them on issues such as bringing back the winter dance, bringing back pep rallies, making sure prom happens, getting a lot of- making Sweet Home as normal as it can possibly be in this pandemic, that was something I was big on, especially since it is my senior year. I want to make sure I can- that I and my graduating class gets to experience.
If the student government could only achieve one thing this year, what do you think it should be?
If student government could only accomplish one thing this year, well I’m going to go very broad with this answer, I think it would be to really get the Sweet Home message of one for all, all for- I forget the slogan, I really do. But we should really work on making sure our community feels as great as possible, and work towards making sure our year is as normal and productive as we possible can in this pandemic.
What do you say to the people that didn’t vote for you?
I know it was a close race, and, I would like to say I’m still very good friends with the other people who ran, Jon Goscinski and Matt McGowan, I personally reached out to them both to work in student government, so even though they weren’t elected, as president I made sure that they were still able to be involved and still create the changes they wanted to change. Whether or not they were elected I still gave them opportunities to join student government and that was- it was their choice if they wanted to accept the positions and opportunities I am willing to give them. So regardless of the election results, we all still are working towards our goals of making Sweet Home a better place and doing what student government would really want.
Eli is a sophomore at Sweet Home High School. In his free time he enjoys playing video games and reading
Ryan Burke is a sophomore at Sweet Home High School, and a former Co-Editor of the Panther Press Viewpoints Section. He is on the swim team, and likes to write about current news and events.