Assistant Arts and Entertainment Editor Sasha Aghnatios ’25, Ellie Borris ’25, Gideon Evans ’25
and Victor Suh ’25 will advance to the second round of Head Prefect elections, Head Prefects Bari LeBari ’24 and Print Managing Editor Davis Marks ’24 announced in an email March 14. The four candidates were chosen from a pool of 12 candidates who gave speeches to juniors on March 13. All four candidates currently serve on Prefect Council as Junior Prefects, which has not occurred since the Head Prefect election in 2020.
Each candidate gave a prepared introductory speech and answered both an unprepared and prepared question from LeBari and Marks. Evans said he had been preparing for his preliminary speech since the beginning of the year.
“The candidate statement [packet] was sent out two weeks before the actual election, and started working on that first by brainstorming ideas for those questions,” Evans said. “I had an idea for my speech since the beginning of the year. The story that I told with my grandpa [in my speech] was always something that I’ve thought about in comparison to my high school experience.”
Borris said he was happy to get the election results because he wanted the other Prefects to advance as well.
“It took me about 30 minutes to actually [write] the rough draft of my [introduction] speech, but a lot of time was put into refining it after that,” Borris said. “After heaiing the election results, I was super happy as I love my fellow Junior Prefects, and it was awesome being able to move on together as we were all rooting for each other.”
Evans said the audience’s response gave him confidence while giving his speech.
“Hearing the audience gave me this massive sense of relief during my speech, and it made me feel good,” Evans said. “It felt like the community was behind me. I was a little nervous to go first, but it was also nice because I got to hear the rest of the speeches.”
Alexa Chang ’25 said she voted for candidates who are not current Prefects because she appreciates new voices on Prefect Council.
“I read most of the candidate statements beforehand to get a better sense of what all the candidates wanted to do,” Chang said. “Something I noticed is that seniority on Prefect Council plays a role in who gets elected for the second round. I voted for two people who are currently not on Prefect Council. I value new people going into student government because if it’s the same people each year, sometimes, there’s a lack of perspective.”
The final round of elections will take place in Taper Gymnasium on March 20, and sophomores will be able to cast votes.
