After the winners of the 2024 homecoming court, Joey Torres and Izabel Gidado, were announced, some questions arose as to students wondering if the results were manipulated. With various students having different opinions on who should win homecoming king and queen, some of them believe that the winners had that title before the voting even opened. After investigating the issue, it was concluded that voting and tallying was one in a fair and honest manner.

How it works

After the multiple allegations, Student Council Advisor Mrs. Cena, shared the process. First, a Google Form of the whole Senior Class is posted on the Senior Classroom. This is where only the Senior Class is allowed to choose the top 10. Once the top 10 is announced, they are asked to fill out an application. This includes their GPA, an activity sheet of what they do for the school, and an anonymous essay which is reviewed by a panel of teachers. A scoring sheet is even made to keep track of the students’ stats. This is where the CHS faculty is brought in for their opinion. Mrs. Cena ensures that she picks teachers that don’t teach those top 10 students so there is no bias to it.

Then, a new form is provided with the top 5 and is open to all students. This year this form included the bios and pictures of the top 5 so people who are not familiar of them know a little bit about them. Finally, the homecoming King and Queen winners are announced due to the votes of the final form and their application.

Students selected for the court are not allowed to campaign for themselves but are allowed to encourage people to vote. This year to remind people to vote, The Declaration Newspaper staff recorded a TikTok video with all of the Top 5 students which had 5,161 views and 312 likes.

Students Thoughts

Senior Ezekiel Gonzalez shared his opinions on this topic, “The results were unsurprising of course, I knew it would come down to either Noah Figueroa or Joey Torres because they’re both really well known in school. My thoughts don’t really matter here since Joey ultimately won, but I did vote for him so I can’t complain. He’s a really cool dude, I have no problems with him at least. I know a lot of people, the girls especially, like Joey. He’s a people-person so it was biased from the start in my opinion. I don’t know Izzy too well, but I know of her, and after reading the information on her in the ballots she seems to have an aspiring future ahead. At the end of the day, it all depends on who you know, it was a literal popularity contest.” 

The Homecoming King and Queen

This homecoming was clearly one that will go down in history, being that Torres is the first king to be openly gay and Gidado being the first Black queen.

The Colonia High School (CHS) 2024 king, Joseph (Joey) Torres, is going into his 3rd year of Journalism. He will be inducted to Quill and Scroll in May due to his dedication. Torres is also the co-leader of the Hispanic Culture Club and is a public relations editor for Journalism. As part of his journalism requirements, Torres can be seen in many of the school’s TikTok’s and social media posts. He works with children as his job and is involved in Heros and Cool Kids, a group that visits middle schools to mentor kids.  He as a dream of working in the medical field when he is older. 

The 2024 queen, Izabel (Izzy) Gidado had the most involvement in her biography. She is a member of the Society for the Prevention of Teen Suicide and is the student leader of Fellowship and Christian Athletes. She will also be inducted into Quill and Scroll because of her dedication to Journalism. Gidado is also a part of Heroes and Cool Kids, National Honors Society, and many other honors societies. She is even the captain of the Girls’ Varsity Basketball Team and a member of the Girls’ Volleyball Team. She plans on playing basketball at a collegiate level when she leaves high school. 

As always, all of our candidates had a great chance to be crowned King and Queen. They all do great things for the school and it is difficult for the results to be rigged. After all, the results have to do with who people want to their winner. 

Another Homecoming that produced unexpected results was the 2013 Homecoming.