To Aubree Gonzales, winning Homecoming Queen would be the best kind of recognition she could receive after her contributions to the community.
“Feeling like, I don’t know, the center of attention, like it’s cool. So I won freshman Princess my freshman year, and it was, like, one of the best days of my life; the rally and the parade and everything yeah, and I liked it a lot, because I do a lot around the school, so it’s kind of nice, like driving down the street in a car and having people clap and give you that recognition.”
As ASB and National Honors Society (NHS) President, Gonzales is constantly prioritizing doing what she can for others. “I just like helping people because I feel like helping people is really honest, and it’s just, I don’t know. I just hate seeing people who need help and knowing that I can’t help.”
Gonzales’s role as ASB President means guiding her peers to plan school events that everyone will enjoy, such as the pep rallies and dances. As for NHS, her contributions are more community based, focused on cleanups and different drives to support locals during times of need.
Gonzales’s desire to help others is drawn from her mother. While being raised by a single mother her whole life, Gonzales has gone through all her troubles with her mom, and her mom has been her largest support system, even adding all of Gonzalez’s plans onto her own calendar so they could tackle everything as a team.
She said, “You know, I tell her everything and anytime I need help with anything, like she always tells me like no matter what you need help with, just tell me and I’ll help you. She’s like, it doesn’t matter if it’s bad, it doesn’t matter if it’s stressful, it doesn’t matter if it’s hard, tell me and I’ll help you. And I think that’s where I get my helping people from.”
However, as much of a help as Gonzales’s mom is, it still doesn’t distract from the fact that Gonzales has to make sacrifices to play such a big role at Colton High. While in middle school she was able to play guitar and read, now she has to choose to prioritize her work over hobbies.
She said, “Ever since I started high school, I haven’t really had time for anything like that. It does kind of suck, because I feel like that’s like self care, you know, but I don’t know I always just tell myself like I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”
Even with school activities, Gonzalez has to prioritize; although she wanted to join band, she led with the decision to join sideline cheer instead because it was lower maintenance for her schedule and it still allowed her to be part of a team, “When I’m like, on the sidelines cheering, and I see band come out that’s my favorite part. Like, I get so excited. I love everything about band, and I had always wanted to do band, but it wasn’t in line with my career goals and things like that, but in another life, I’ll be in marching band.”
Ultimately, high school would have been less daunting for Gonzales if it weren’t for something that would prove to be a challenge on her plate. “My freshman year, I got diagnosed with an autoimmune disease, and it totally messed me up… So then it was so hard, like being sick and having all of these goals and ambitions and trying to like, still accomplish them while not being well enough to come to school.”
Gonzales was diagnosed with her autoimmune disease right before she won Homecoming Princess, so winning that title felt like a reward because she still managed to persevere and thrive in school, despite this new obstacle.
It had not only taken a toll on Gonzales, but her mother as well, “She would sit by me, like, to make sure I was still breathing, and stuff like, and so she, you know, she’s had to, like, carry me into the hospital before, like, she’s been there the whole time.”
Gonzales continued about how winning Homecoming Queen would be fulfilling for her mother as well. “I think for her to be able to watch me, like, win on the field and like be standing next to me and watch me get crowned, would just make her feel like, really fulfilled or like she did an extra good job raising me.”
Overall, Gonzales has the hope that her impact on the community was big enough for her to encourage people to vote for her, “To know that, I met enough people and I was nice to enough people, and I was helpful to enough people, where enough people liked me and were like ‘you know what, I want to vote for her for Queen’, that would just be really cool.”
