2024 ASB president Lyla Merk and 2025 ASB president Linda Aguirre Rojas, our wonderful past and future ASB presidents. Photo courtesy of junior Mara De Blas Villarán.
With the year coming to a close, it’s time to say goodbye to the current president ASB Lyla Merk, and meet the new president Linda Aguirre Rojas here at San Luis Obispo High School. Even though students are disappointed to let Merk go, they can’t be more filled with excitement to see what’s to come with Rojas.
Expressions have asked them some questions regarding their incredible enthusiasm and experience.
Expressions: What has been your favorite part of being in ASB?
Senior Lyla Merk: Probably just the family of it. In the class, we do so much outside of school hours, and there’s so much collaboration that you kind of end up being like a big family.
Junior Linda Aguirre Rojas: My favorite part of being in ASB is definitely all of the relationships I’ve created. It’s a great thing to learn from your peers, and especially watch them grow and how that helps you grow as an individual. I have taken the best from all the people in ASB, they are amazing, wonderful and such hard workers, and I think it’s great because we’re all one community. Really that’s what I want for our whole school, for our campus to be one big community.
Expressions: What did you enjoy about being ASB President?
Merk: Learning to work with others and not telling people what to do but working with them.
Expressions: What do you look forward to with being ASB President?
Rojas: I look forward to a lot of things, I have different goals set in mind and some new ideas that I want to execute in the next year to come. One of the biggest ones is making our school feel like a community and bringing all of our students together, highlighting our differences but celebrating them and making sure that all of the students feel seen and heard, especially with all of our students on campus being different, we all have different backgrounds. I think it’d be really cool if we would just express that in a beautiful way.
Expressions: If you could give one piece of advice to the next Linda Rojas, what would it be and why?
Merk: She’s going into it in a way better place than I was, she’s really so experienced. I guess the only piece of advice because I struggled with it was just to be authentic. You’re not trying to live up to anyone else’s standards, because it’s just your own ASB presidency, it’s different from everybody else’s.
Expressions: What is one piece of advice you would give to someone who is joining ASB?
Rojas: I would say have energy, at the end of the day, you are doing these things for our school and for our campus, and for the better of our school and our community, so just put your all into it.
Expressions: If you could choose a famous person to help ASB make this school thrive, who would it be and why?
Merk: Maybe Kevin Hart. He’d bring a good vibe, he’d finance or I’d force him to donate money. I think he would be a good influence on our school and just is a little short king.
Rojas: I would say Pitbull. He’s so energetic, uplifting and motivating, and I think that’s what our school campus needs at times.
Expressions: What is one lesson you’ve learned from being ASB President?
Merk: Learning to work with others and not tell people what to do, but work with them, so not just bossing people around, but making sure you’re doing it in a way where they want to work with you and it’s not like total like Power Trip sort of thing. Definitely mitigating, just because you’re the president doesn’t mean you’re powerful. You just are an ASB student.
Expressions: What is one lesson you’ve learned from being in ASB?
Rojas: One of the most important ones is being vulnerable. That was a good lesson for me. There was a thing where we sat down with a group of people and we just got to really know each other and be vulnerable with each other. And I think that’s how relationships are built, and just how you put yourself out there having realness with one another and again being vulnerable, it gets you to connect with others and get to show who you really are. And I think that’s cool, because you introduce yourself and talk about who you are, what your values are. And it’s not just like a face, you’re putting some emotion into it.
Expressions: What do you think SLOHS students should expect from next school year?
Rojas: I think students should expect a lot of fun activities and a lot of events. It’s going to be an exciting year, we’re going to have a lot of things planned and a lot of different goals that we want to do, so just overall a fun year.
As one chapter closes with the departure of our beloved Merk, another unfolds with the promise and vision of our incoming leader Rojas, embodying a unified school community where inclusivity and diversity are celebrated, fostering a strong bond among Tigers at SLOHS, and we could not be happier to have her.
