Boothbay Region High School students elected incoming senior Karl Alamo as their new student body president for the 2014-2015 school year. The students elect the class officers in the spring because, according to teacher Manon Lewis, fall activities start right as the school year begins.

“Events like homecoming need a leader, and it makes more sense to have everything in place so it's not rushed,” Lewis said.

When asked why he decided to run for student body president, Alamo said it was “time to step in and take action.” Only incoming seniors can run for student body president.

“I don't like the schedule change being proposed, and neither do a lot of other students,” Alamo said. “This year we have eight periods and we drop two classes every day. Next year classes will be split into four each semester, which means students taking AP classes will have to use two periods every day because of the workload.”

Now that he has been elected, Alamo wants to reach out to the student body to see what they want to do about the change, and together propose solutions to improve the situation.

“I was surprised, and happy that I won,” Alamo said.

“I think Karl will do a great job,” Principal Dan Welch said. “He has been involved in a lots of organizations throughout high school, such as the leadership club and the Y. He's a very good and conscientious student.

“We had excellent candidates this year — any of them would have done a great job.”

Individual class presidents were also voted in. Senior class president will be Kyle Alamo, junior class president will be Hannah Morley, and sophomore class president will be Kate Friant.

“It's pretty cool Kyle and I are both on the BRHS student government,” Karl Alamo said. “(Kyle) has wanted to be president for a long time and I'm glad he decided to go for it this year.”