Have you ever wondered who makes decisions for EMS and why they make them? Mr. Bazan and other staff of the Emporia Middle School made the pep rally possible. Mr. Bazan had gotten the idea from the Student Council here at EMS. After he got the idea, he went to the teacher leaders here at EMS and got their opinion. “Why did we have a pep rally?”, you might ask. Well, Mr. Bazan gave us the answer, “We wanted to celebrate the teachers, the coaches, the teams, and some of the students.”

     I asked Mr. Bazan if we were planning on making this a year round event. Mr. Bazan answered, “We will probably have 3 of the [Pep Rallies] this year, and it’s the only time when everyone is all together like we are one huge family but we are also as a family honoring things that we hold sacred sportsmanship the effort the teachers give we [were honoring] the students who gave to Hurricane Harvey.” As you can tell by the way Mr. Bazan spoke of the pep rally like it was important not only to him but to the school as a whole.

     I also asked him about why he decided to become a principal here at EMS. Mr. Bazan states,”I decided to become a principal [around] my sixth week teaching. I was a teacher in inner city Dallas [Texas] and I had a great principal an awesome principal and I really told myself, I want to do his job that’s the job I want. I want to impact the school and the staff and the students differently from what I was currently doing. So then I started school got certified and got a job. In the meantime my wife is from Emporia we had two children and we didn’t have any family close to us and so we were in the parking lot of orange leaf one day about three years ago and we had had our second child Oliver and we were kind of talking and going why don’t we live here this city is awesome we have come back and forth for 13 years we’ve always loved being here and they have a school system I am a principal for a school I could get a job here maybe. So that’s what started the shift from where we currently were.”  

     I had also asked him if we were planning on doing anything else new around Emporia Middle School. Mr. Bazan said, “ We started a PTO this year a parent teacher organization. I do have a couple staff celebration things planned that they don’t know about yet. I am [also] starting a principal advisory committee it’s a group of 20 students our first meeting is the end of October and I selected those [students because] I am outside a lot and in the halls a lot and I have met a lot of kids. So I started with a list of twenty students that have leadership behaviors and I am meeting with them in October and I am going to be asking them questions like, What do like about the school?, What you think needs changed about the school?, What do you want to see happen at the school?, and How are things going on your level?. [Because] there is not currently [a student advise area] we do have a student council but that is more like school spirit. I really want to be advised by the students.”

     I personally think that this year will be a great year for us students, and the staff here at EMS. The pep rally was just one of the things that are going to be changing here. The changes I think are a good thing.