Last Wednesday, the juniors of Manhattan High school made their voices heard as they voted for this year’s prom theme.

Three themes were on the ballot — Under the Stars, Vogue and 24 Karat — with 24 Karat emerging victorious.

“…we thought it was a really cool idea to kind of go for like a gold kind of like, shiny luster kind of thing,” junior class president Elizabeth Kim, junior, said.

Graphic by Olivia Haas

According to Kim, it was a close vote, with votes between 24 Karat and Under the Stars differing by four votes.

The Student Council junior class annually plans prom, coming up with everything from themes and decorations to invitations and food. Now that they have their theme, they will move on to planning ways to make the Manhattan Town Center look special for prom attendees.

“I’m looking forward to like seeing like the reactions of everyone and just seeing how they like it,” junior class representative Lexi Feather, junior, said. “It’s going to be cool to see how like, all of our hard work paid off.”

Feather stressed that the junior StuCo class would like their peers to let them know what they would like to see at prom, allowing for more community involvement in the planning process.

“…we just try to incorporate everyone around us,” Feather said.

StuCo is hoping to have good communication throughout their planning and organization stages this year to ensure that everything goes well, since they do have to do so much to prepare. On the day of prom, for example, junior StuCo members spend all morning at the Manhattan Town Center decorating the space before returning later that night to actually attend the event. The amount of work that they have to put in means that they must communicate well.

“I’m hoping for our class as a whole to kind of come together and make sure all of our voices are being heard and that our communication is very well thought out, because I don’t want this to like, tear us apart,” junior class representative Elizabeth Chapman said.

An important part of StuCo’s plan to make this prom successful is their overall goal of creating a unified event. Unity is something that they plan to focus on throughout this year.

“I believe that currently the school has…some lack in school unity, and it was one of the things that I said in my speech when I ran as class president that I promised to bring,” Kim said.

As they move forward with the large undertaking that is prom planning, the junior StuCo class hopes to shape the event into something that all Manhattan High upperclassmen can enjoy.

“I hope to…try to bring in people that normally wouldn’t go to these types of things and…not be a disappointment to them,” Kim said, “like make it like a really magical night that allows them to reach more into the school community as well.”

Prom will be at 9:30 p.m. on April 27 at Manhattan Town Center.