Interview with SPUD Chair Brandy Liu

Brandy+Liu%2C+one+of+the+SPUD+2022+Chairs.

| via Brandy Liu

Brandy Liu, one of the SPUD 2022 Chairs.

- Thomas Richardson and Adam Nixion

On October 19th, we had the chance to sit down with SPUD Chair Brandy Liu, senior, and ask her a few questions about SPUD.

So for how long have you been involved with SPUD?

I’ve been involved since sophomore year, that’s when I joined SPUD class.

What did you do in SPUD class?

Sophomore year I was in charge of taking photos for everyone and all the events and just doing other things like leading a hallway and being a leader for SPUD.

What’s leading a hallway?

For SPUD week we decorate most of the hallways for certain things, and one of my jobs that year was to lead a hallway with another girl and decide what we wanted for our hallway, find decorations, and lead a group of students to decorate it.

How did you get involved with the leadership side of SPUD?

So I didn’t really know what SPUD class was and I actually wasn’t on committee freshman year until someone who was in one of the positions…  SPUD chairs, he was a Royalty [Chair] he said, “You should apply and get involved” and I actually planned on getting to DEN first but sadly I didn’t make it so I ended up applying for SPUD class not knowing what I was getting myself into.

You’re a SPUD chair this year, is there anything that has changed from the previous years that you’ve seen?

I don’t think there [have] been any big fundamental changes we are always trying to get more people included, making it more diverse, and we really want to focus this year on our workforce and to have a connection, not just our like us chairs but for the recipients to be able to connect with the whole school and for the school to be able to see the behind the scenes of what we do.

How do you plan on accomplishing that?

There [are] a few things we are working on a lot this year. We’ve introduced liaison roles in SPUD, we have people designated and focusing that they are involved with us and we invest in them (the recipients). We are helping and we have some events planned for recipients to join us and we just really want to show that the money goes somewhere and that we are impacting recipients and even past recipients today.

What’s been your favorite part of SPUD so far?

My favorite part, being on the chair side of things is to just see who we’re impacting and getting closer to them and to watch the effect we have on them. And this year we have 400 committee members so just seeing all the committee members work together for one cause and seeing all the school get hyped and excited for us decorating and everything

Is 400 the most committee members that SPUD has ever had?

From what I’m aware of, yes.

Do you think as time moves forward, so let’s say in 10 years, you think at least half the school will be involved in SPUD?

I think being a part of the SPUD committee and being involved with SPUD is different. I hope the whole school can get involved with SPUD, they want to go attend the assemblies. I don’t know if it would ever go to 1000 or even 1,500 kids attending, being part of the SPUD committee; that’s a lot of kids to watch over and that is a lot of things to do and it is a bigger commitment to make. But I do hope that as we grow in 10 years there’s a bigger love for SPUD.

Do you know what your plans for after high school are?

I’ve been looking a lot at nonprofits, through SPUD I’ve been just seeing how much those amazing organizations do. And so I would probably do something with a nonprofit, maybe accounting, financing, or business. I’ve been looking at a lot of things, and I am still undecided on which college I want to go to[yet]. I’ve been looking at a few, but I hope to continue to stay involved in different philanthropies and nonprofits outside [of Norman North].

Outside of SPUD Brandy Liu has been involved with DEN, Yearbook, and was a Class Officer.