Skyline senior, who is part of student government, helped organize ‘Souper Bowl’ competition

IDAHO FALLS — Grace Antonson has been a part of student government since the seventh grade and was a lead organizer recently for a big event that involved collecting canned food items.

The 17-year-old senior at Skyline High School is the current spirit leader for student government.

“Every year, we have a set of activities that we do, like the Souper Bowl. We put on the homecoming dance, the homecoming parade and we have some extra activities that we add in every year,” Antonson said.

The Souper Bowl is a friendly competition that happens each year between Skyline High School and Idaho Falls High School. This was its 18th year.

“It’s just a huge food drive for Idaho Falls and everything goes to the Community Food Basket,” she said. “It’s really heartwarming to see how our community comes together for a common cause.”

Antonson has spent months — since October — preparing for the Souper Bowl, which began on Jan. 19 and ended on Feb. 2. It’s a big time commitment, too, where she has spent hours each day helping.

“I would come to school at 8 a.m. and then I would leave probably around 5 p.m. every day. I was calling businesses to see if they wanted to donate, asking for raffle prizes or monetary donations,” she explained.

The determined teen was counting canned food items that were collected with students.

“I was inputting things into my spreadsheet because the way that I kept track of our can count was through an Excel spreadsheet. So I would have to do that after school after I had everyone’s numbers from the day,” Antonson said.

In the end, Skyline students collected more than 265,000 cans of food, which is almost 100,000 more than last year.

Antonson is proud of the accomplishment and has enjoyed her time in student government. She’s always liked being a leader, and her biggest goal has been to help others.

She’s learned that not everything is easy, and she has dealt with challenges, but it has, in turn, made her who she is today.

“I ran last year for student body spirit director and lost. I ran this year for student body president and lost,” Antonson said. “And then I got the spirit director position. I just like proving myself wrong.”

Antonson has been exploring options for her future after high school.

“I either want to go to CEI (College of Eastern Idaho) and get a business major and a minor in marketing,” she said.

She has considered another option after high school, too. Antonson is part of BPA, which stands for Business Professionals of America. She competed in an event.

“I competed in legal office procedures. Basically, you take a test, and you write a sample affidavit or letter … something that lawyers do, and then you submit it, and you get scored on it,” she said. “When I was doing that, I was like, ‘Wow, this is really interesting. I really like it.'”

Antonson has thought about being a lawyer, and she hopes to transfer to Boise State University one day.

Antonson talked highly of her parents — her father from Vietnam and her mother from the States — for teaching her to be prepared and always have a plan in place.

“I definitely learned from my parents how to be a problem solver. They always taught me that I need to have a plan A, B and C,” she said.