Addysen Applebee joined thinking they'd paint a few murals. That's what the superintendent's student advisory committee sounded like from the outside — a small group, some paint, maybe a hallway project or two. She was a freshman. She said yes.

That was three years ago. The murals are there — lining the corridor near the new gym, each one a photographic collage assembled from decades of yearbook images, organized into Google Drives, sent to a graphic designer, and installed by a professional team. Wrestling. Basketball. Golf. Football. A separate mural that sophomore Brynlee Hunt spent considerable time pulling together, depicting the merger of Seneca's three feeder communities — Mazon, Milton Pope, and Seneca itself — their histories literally converging into a single image. "It's just like how we all came together," Brynlee said. "How we're just all one."

But the murals turned out to be the beginning, not the point.

"I didn't expect it to turn into what it did," Addysen said.

What it became was Irish Fest — a whole-school, community-wide event, complete with a band concert and a talent show, that brought people out from across the area. An art showcase. A growing sense that this committee wasn't decorating the building. It was helping define what the building means.

The group — 25 to 30 students, six to eight per class, selected by teachers when they're freshmen and staying all four years — meets once a month with Superintendent Dan Stecken. He's deliberate about his role in those meetings. "I'll just sit back and sort of watch them take it and run with it," he said. "That's cool to me." He removes himself from the selection process entirely. When two teachers nominated his own daughter her freshman year, he said no. They came back to him after she wasn't invited. She got mad. "The dinner table advisory wasn't enough?" She's on the committee now.

What these monthly meetings give Stecken is something his office can't generate on its own. "The further you get away from the classroom, the less you know." He'll walk into classrooms on bad days just to get out from behind his desk — but what this group offers is different. It's structured listening. "These kids bring a perspective that I might not hear about."

Addysen is a senior heading to Illinois Wesleyan in the fall to study psychology, with school psychology in mind. Stecken didn't let that pass without context: the regional special education co-op in Ottawa can't find school psychologists — they'll pay for the internship and the master's program and guarantee a job at the end. "Know that," he told her.

Brynlee, whose parents are both teachers, hears from friends at surrounding schools what things are like elsewhere. The comparison lands clearly. "I feel like most people just say, I can't wait to leave this town," she said. "But genuinely, I enjoy being here. I feel like I could just say hi to anyone, and it'll be okay." She's exploring medicine — occupational therapy, physical therapy, athletic training, paramedicine. The specifics are still taking shape. The instinct is already there.

The committee's most ambitious current project is a women's leadership forum. Two smaller events have already taken place at a coffee shop in town. This spring, nine schools will send students to Seneca. More than 100 students from outside the district have already signed up, and Addysen helped shape what it will look like.

The first small forum was one of the most meaningful experiences of her four years here. "You may not think it all the time as a woman — you might think other women are out to get you, whatever. But when we were in there, we all kind of felt like we were each other's best friend." She walked out feeling confident. She can't wait for the larger one.

Stecken, whose willingness to teach whatever was necessary to get the job 21 years ago has applied that same work ethic to do whatever he can for every student's individualized success. He calls Seneca a lighthouse district — a place doing things other schools wouldn't attempt, wrapped in a community and culture that insulates it from the strife he hears about at conferences. "This building is the best thing happening in this community," he said. "And I never want to see that end."

The students driving these projects aren't passengers in that mission. They're a significant reason it holds.