Our incoming class of 2021 eagerly took on high school with a whopping total of 14 candidates running for various student council positions. What a strong way to start off the 2017-18 school year.

Five candidates ran independently for class president, along with four vice president candidates and two for both publicity representative and secretary. These numbers are exceptionally large, proving to be higher than the school’s seen in years. All gave compelling speeches at the freshman assembly on Thursday, Sept. 14, making the decisions difficult. With an election as heavily contested as this, it was important to have all freshmen in attendance to cast their vote.

By Friday, it was clear that the freshman class does care very much about who will represent them; Class officials announced a runoff in the president and vice president races. The remaining two candidates for president were Gus Glasheen and London Mahaley. For vice president they were Madison Brown and Basil Stein.The runoff was held Wednesday, Sept. 20 at lunch in freshman hall. Freshmen had the opportunity to line up at a table manned by Susie Brighouse, freshman class advisor, and present their student identification to vote. Said Brighouse, “I haven’t yet had the chance to get to know this class very well yet, but these numbers show me how ambitious they are already and I’m impressed by how many showed up to vote.”

After the final results of the runoff, president will be Mahaley and vice president will be Madison Brown. Quinn Brugger will be the class secretary, and Isadora Baird-Appleton is publicity representative.

Mahaley shared that after running for vice president in seventh grade at Sellwood and losing, and then holding committee chair in eighth grade, like all his hard work paid off. When asked about his motivations, Mahaley said, “I went to Sellwood, and I remember Nick Paesler (this year’s junior class president) being president then.  Seeing him when I walked into registration this fall, I just thought, ‘I wanna be like that.’”  London also shared that he is excited to see what hall decs is all about this October, with the freshman theme being “Toy Story.” With many candidates also joining the council as su