Students promote positivity through anonymous social media page
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) – As thousands of students prepared for a new school year in Lawrence Township on Thursday, one unknown teenager prepared to debut as the new manager of an anonymous social media page.
The Instagram account @LNBeauts was launched in 2014 by its then-anonymous creator Mary Francis Stuff.
Stuff was in her senior year at Lawrence North High School on the northeast side of Indianapolis when the student body mourned the deaths of two schoolmates who took their own lives.
It was during that period that the soon-to-be graduate created the account intended to inspire the student body through their own traits.
“I thought that it was important that we kind of reinstated, or really brought to the forefront of everyone’s minds, that you never know what people are going through no matter how they act in public or around their friends,” Stuff said.
Every week during the school year, posts through the Instagram account single out students with a picture and a caption to capture the person they are inside.
“The main theme that we wanted was focusing on inner beauty and focusing on their actions and how they made an impact on their friends,” Stuff said.
The account has more than 650 followers which more recently included school administrators. The account was started without teacher or administrator knowledge and has stayed completely student-run.
“It makes me very proud. As I always say, I get to be the principal of Lawrence North High School,” Principal Brett Crousore said. “We have to provide these positive opportunities for (students) while they’re with us and what my suggestion would be to others is to empower our youth. They will come up with these ideas, they know how to make each other feel great and so let them do it.”
Stuff revealed her role as the creator of the account on her graduation day but not before designating a new manager. She chose a sophomore at the time who would run the account for the next two years.
Annie Dempsey followed Stuff’s suit in announcing to the high school of her involvement on the day of her graduation on June 8, 2017. She has since chosen the manager to take the account into its third generation.
“I feel like this is something that can be done more often,” Annie Dempsey said. “It is special but it’s not something that just we could have started. Anyone can do it and hopefully they see this and they do start doing it. That would be really cool.”
Lawrence Township started the 2017-2018 school year on Thursday.