The leader of the school leaders

“I’ve been at Armijo for four years, and this is my second year as Activities Director,” he said. These two years have been anything but typical.

As Activities Director, Mr. Towner, an Armijo graduate from the Class of 2011, has a lot of responsibility, even during a regular school year. ”I am responsible for keeping track of all the clubs on campus. I have to keep their paperwork and meeting minutes up to date. I also check in on club meetings every now and then to see what they are up to,” he said. “I am also responsible for hosting events on campus such as dances, Powder Puff, Homecoming, and many other events.” When school resumes, some of those events are expected to return over time.

One of Mr. Tower’s favorite events since he has been the school’s Activities Director was last year’s Color Run. “It was the first activity that I had been in charge of as an Activities Director,” he said.

A second activity that made him proud was the Night Rally. “It was a brand new event that we put on and had over 600 students show up.”

Even though activities are slowly opening up on campus, Mr. Towner has faced some pretty big challenges with COVID-19 this last year. “I thrive in an environment where I can get to know my students and work with them based on how well we know one another,” he said. “Building the relationships through distance learning and seeing how much it has affected students negatively has made me feel a bit helpless. Normally it is my job to make students’ high school experience as enjoyable as possible, and I had a lot of that taken away from me with distance learning… I still put a smile on and try to be positive and make that change that I can, but obviously it is very difficult through a computer screen! I miss my students more than I ever thought I would.”

Mr. Towner’s experience does not stop at being in charge of the Associated Student Body (ASB) Leadership class. “I am also the baseball coach…. I also teach AP Calculus and Math 2,” he said.