Election season is firmly underway at St. Louis U. High, as members of the classes of 2023, 2024, and 2025 hosted  elections this past week to determine next year’s Student Council class officers. After an extensive application and primary process, members of the current freshman class elected Noah Butler as President and Ronan Smith as Vice President, while the sophomores chose Andrew Moffett for President and Tommy O’Keefe for Vice President. Juniors chose Jack SanFillipo for President, and tapped Alberto Vushaj to be Vice President to lead their class.

In addition, juniors held elections for Student Body President and Vice President yesterday and selected Patrick Mehan as President and Chandler Flowers as Vice President.

As in previous years, the underclassman election process began a few weeks before the primary election, where prospective candidates were filled out a Google Form as a preliminary qualification for entering the primary. From the primary, the six candidates receiving the most votes proceed to the general election phase, where each candidate gives an in-person speech to their classmates. After speeches, students have until the end of the day to select their top two choices;  the candidate receiving the most votes is President, while the runner-up assumes the role of Vice President.

In the freshman election, Butler centered his speech largely around establishing some of his ideas for STUCO, including a plan to revitalize the group’s social media presence. Butler is also hopeful that he can make a difference in STUCO, and wants to ensure that his classmates’ voices are heard.

“During my speech, I focused on outlining what I planned to do during my time as Class President, beginning with a refresh of STUCO’s social media presence,” said Butler. “I also made sure I focused on establishing myself as the candidate of strong leadership who will go to battle for my class day in and day out. I plan on carrying out my duties by making sure I’m always listening to my classmates and bringing their ideas to the table. I also plan on attending as many different events as possible to foster deeper connections with my classmates.”

In addition, Butler will also look to continue a STUCO family dynasty, as his brother PJ, ’20 served as Student Body President during the 2019-20 school year.

Following an election process identical to that put in place for freshman elections, the sophomore class selected Moffett as Class President. Moffett, who served as Class President his freshman year, centered his campaign around the idea of uniting the sophomore  class more fully.

“I focused on class identity, which pertained to the theme of our sophomore retreat,” said Moffett. “I’ll be asking kids in all my classes about ideas centered around new and improved events. I want to make sure that every voice can be heard and make a difference.”

O’Keefe was elected to the role of Vice President after receiving the second-largest percentage of the vote.

Lastly, juniors completed their election process just yesterday, with speeches held in the Danis Field House during studium. Due to a low number of applications for both Student Body President and Class President, the primary system was not utilized, meaning that approved candidates moved straight into the speech-giving phase of the election. While candidates for class officer positions did not need to fulfill any specific prerequisites, the Student Body President application was only made available to those in the Class of 2023 who served on Student Council or Class Council at some point in their time at SLUH.

Following speeches, SanFillipo was elected to the position of Class President after receiving the highest number of votes. Aiming for humor, SanFillipo dressed as Batman for his speech, giving his speech—modeled off of Robert Pattinson’s monologue from The Batman (2022)—from the point of view of the fictional superhero. On a more serious note, SanFillipo vowed to be a representative voice for all classmates.

After taking the second-highest share of votes, Vushaj assumed the role of Vice President. He centered his speech around the theme of brotherhood and ensuring that the class is being given a proper voice. 

The race for Student Body President pitted three familiar STUCO faces against each other: current Junior Class President Kam Bailey, former Freshman and Sophomore Class President Patrick Mehan, and Intramural Class Officer Chandler Flowers.

Flowers, whose speech largely focused on his ideas of expanding recreational activities at SLUH, was elected to the position of Student Body Vice President after receiving the second-most votes. 

“Next year, I want to focus on getting students more involved in the activities around the school,” said Flowers. “I want to rebuild that feeling of brotherhood that we lost due to Covid, and just make school overall a lot more enjoyable.” 

As for the position of Student Body President, Mehan made his return to the realm of STUCO after being voted out of office in last year’s election. Mehan’s speech was largely geared towards humor, including having a classmate bring up a “lost” portion of his speech, and making a likely-false claim that the Covid-19 pandemic had made it so that he had “never even talked to a woman.”

Needless to say, the humor worked its magic for Mehan, who will enter his third year of service to STUCO at the beginning of next school year.

Said Mehan, “I’m probably most looking forward to the very beginning of the school year. The energy is always so high and I think how you start out with STUCO really sets the mood for the rest of the year. I know with all the activities right out of the gate, like BTSM, and Spirit Week, we have the chance to start our year off with a bang, and I’m excited to get working on it.”