Who Was Bill Brasky?

Fayetteville High School held class officer elections last week. My cousin Gabe ran for senior class president. Gabe, I think, is not popular - but that's not to say he isn't cool. He tall and skinny and self depreciating (see photo). He overacts, and would make a perfect techie sidekick to any action hero. But he isn't the action hero that wins the school election; there can only be one Highlander.

I was told by a guy I mentor that on the day of elections, Gabe and his small group of loyal friends dressed in suits, then stood outside the high school and shook the hands of every single student attending class that day. Then he lost. But I thought his campaign strategy was extremely classy, and I would have voted for him, if I had been allowed to.

I'm not allowed to vote in FHS elections anymore, one, because I'm not a student (probably the first issue that would come up if I tried to vote), but more interestingly, two, because I sabotaged those very same elections my senior year.

As a senior, I was far beyond running for class officer - I only wanted to screw up everyone else's attempts to do so. I created a fake person, Bill Brasky, and got the required amount of signatures to insert him into the race for sophomore class president. Then, my friends and I began an aggressive viral marketing campaign, printing hundreds of flyers that only read, "WHO IS BILL BRASKY?" and wallpapering the school with them like ads for Italian political parties. Then I left school, so as to not be present when Bill was unmasked.

Bill won. To this day, I am not sure how. It is possible the sophomores did not care at all. For my part, I got into hot water with the student council president - then we got out, leaped into the pool, then jumped back into hot water, because that's always a rush. But that was the extent of the trouble. The principal actually encouraged me to take the ACT as Bill. I only wish Gabe had put his effort into destroying the system, instead of cooperating with it.