Derek Neary
Northern News Services

Fort Providence (Nov 26/99) - With a territorial election just around the corner, students at Deh Gah school in Fort Providence carried out their own election last week.

They headed to the polls to elect a president and vice-president of the student body. Ben Bonnetrouge was given the mandate of president while Cherl Lafferty will assume the vice-presidential role.

Bonnetrouge, a Grade 11 student, was selected over two other candidates for the presidential title. He said he was likely chosen due to his convincing campaign speech. He told his fellow students how honoured he would be to represent them as president, he said.

A former student representative on the Deh Gah Gotie council, he has a general interest in politics and even attended the MLA candidates' forum in Fort Providence last week.

Bonnetrouge, who will now be responsible to attend student council and District Education Authority meetings, said he hopes to improve students' attitudes towards school.

"We could see some improvement," he said.

Increasing the number of activities for students would be one method of achieving this goal, he suggested.

Lafferty, who's in Grade 8, also defeated two other hopefuls for the vice-presidential position. A former class representative on student council, Lafferty said she thinks her reliability was a factor in her electoral success.

Among other things, she said she hopes to enhance the school's co-operation with younger students.

"It all depends on what they (the students) want. They can give me the ideas and I would see if I can work things out," she said.

Deh Gah principal Jane Arychuk noted that this year marks the return of student council after a few years hiatus. In the past, the council dissolved due to a lack of participation, she said. The roles come with real responsibility.

"If you want to have a dance then we need to know the week before you're having a dance," she said. "We're trying to teach them proper procedure as well as responsibility and reliability."

Students in Barb Killbery's Grade 4-6 class studied the election process and some of them carried out official duties accordingly. Faith Gates acted as the chief electoral officer, Ashley Arychuk and Annadette Bouvier were returning officers and Jessica Minoza was the deputy returning officer.

Gates said her duty was to make sure the election was running properly.

"I made sure that the kids only voted for one (candidate) and the people who were watching them vote didn't tell them who to vote for," she explained.