It isn’t hard for East Union senior class president Alexis Martinez to remember what she enjoyed most about her four years on campus.

What’s hard for her is narrowing the list down to just a few items.

For the last two years Martinez has served as the president to the Class of 2011 – working with other elected and appointed members of the school’s leadership class to tackle everything from fun on-campus events to mega happenings like the prom.

In the end, just being plugged in and doing what she could to improve the high school experience for everybody else on the East Union campus is what Martinez says she’s most proud of.

“I’m happy that I had a chance to make an impact, and I was able to do that by staying positive and by helping wherever and whenever somebody needed it,” she said. “The hard thing about leadership was meeting the deadlines and the budgets, but it was a great way to get involved with things on campus.”

Under her tutelage, the senior class left East Union with a huge movie screen that the students utilized for movie nights, and will place their 2011 plaque on the walkway in front of the school where previous classes have done the same.

Also a swimmer, Martinez kept busy outside of her leadership duties by volunteering at her church and making sure that she was all caught up on her classwork.

She plans on attending San Jose State University in the fall and majoring in criminology – something that has always intrigued her – which she hopes will help open the doors to the career that she has always wanted to pursue.

“That field is just really interesting to me, because there’s so much to it,” she said. “I really want to become a detective and work in law enforcement. That’s what I’ve wanted to do for a while now.”

But her on-campus involvement doesn’t stop with her involvement in leadership.

As the president of Club Bridge, Martinez helps bridge the gap between students with special needs and developmental disabilities and regular high school kids so that they both benefit from the company of one another.

It’s that sort of involvement in school, she said, that helped shape her high school years and it’s something that she encourages incoming students to pursue as well for the same reasons.

“I think that the best thing that a new student can do is get involved because it allows you to meet new people and build friendships,” Martinez said. “It’s a way to have positive influences in your life, and then you’re able to be a positive influence in the lives of others.”