I’ve known Imran Siddiqui since 4th grade.

That’s us on our final high school spirit day ever. (Yes, we’re both crying) Thanks to my Imran-exposure, I’ve seen him at his best, and at his student-council-class-president-trying-to-make-it-through-Homecoming-Week.

Every year, float parties begin in August, but it’s really not until the school year creeps up that they become the intense and stress-building twice-a-week events that would make any class president’s knees buckle. When boiled down to the essential facts, a float party is a gathering of students from one graduating class to build the Homecoming float for that year. But for a senior with a demanding course (and life) load, there are battling forces.

Nonetheless, as work and stress piles up and days pass by, the parties continue through September, peaking in intensity as they wrap up and Spirit Week, the annual school-wide celebration of each class, dawns.

To add insult to injury is the immense pressure Imran felt to sweep the results– achieve the most points, and therefore wins, in every Spirit Week category– as the crowning jewel on his Homecoming experience over the past four years.

And so, Spirit Week arrives, and Imran, though outwardly optimistic, begins to crack. Luckily his family, friends, and councilmembers have his back as he sets up for Senior Spirit Day 2019.

Finally, the final float party for the Class of 2020 is here. Attendance always soars at the final parties of the year, and while I’d like to think it’s in celebration of the completed work, this year the stationary barbecue food truck out front might have affected turnout. Regardless, Imran remains focused on the task at hand, as usual. And as the night closes, he abandons regret.

The Senior Class of 2020 didn’t sweep Homecoming 2019– but I like to think it did. Because this year’s graduates had the opportunity to experience consecutive years of Imran’s steady, attentive, and always committed leadership. While #SeniorSweep remained elusive, the hard work was no less recognized by his council members and members of the community when the floats paraded down the mainstreet and the Class of 2020 chanted with all their might: “Squad what? 2020!”