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Icing the Cupcakes: Rachel Watson rouses racial emotions with her sizzling editorial in University City High School's student newspaper

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Her wrangling with the school business office brought Watson into the nastier world of adult politics. Watson and her executive board wrote a letter requesting funds. Soon after, an anonymous letter appeared in mailboxes around University City. It claimed that Watson's father, Avery, who had made enemies through his work on the University City Board of Education, had written the letter and had Watson sign her name to it.

"It was truly an effort to retaliate against [Avery]," says Monica Watson, "and they used her to do it."

"It was so high school," Rachel says.

In the end, Blumenhorst lent the student council money from his activities budget, and the store opened as planned. Though only open on basketball game days, it has already sold out its stock.

Watson's experiences on student council have given her a taste for public affairs, a subject she plans to study at college next year. (She hopes to attend Northwestern.) Though she enjoys politics — she supports Barack Obama in the current election — she's more interested in using government to bring people together.

"She has the ability to connect to a lot of different groups," Blumenhorst says.

Originally, Watson had not planned to attend University City High. She had enrolled at Cardinal Ritter as a freshman, but after her father was laid off from his job in software support, she had to transfer. But Watson doesn't think she would be much different if she'd stayed at Ritter. "It's my personality," she says. "There's no button to turn me off."

Nonetheless, she's ready to move on. In a recent issue of U-Times devoted to senior resolutions, she wrote: "I'm ready to leave." "People said, 'You can't say that, you're the student council president!'" She shrugs. "It's true."

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