How to Win a Cate Presidential Election

By: Eli Meisel '25

After the closest presidential election in Cate's history, Barron Crayton and Jenevive Won will be next year's Student Body President and Vice President. 

The election followed the ranked choice format, where voters ranked the candidates in order of their preference, and if no candidate received the majority of first-choice votes, the one with the fewest was eliminated. Their votes are distributed to the voters’ second choices. 

Mrs. Hansen states, “Three people review the votes, including the current president.” After the review, Barron won the election, securing his presidential title for next year. 

He reflects, “I think we won because of Jen and my connection to the community. I feel that a large part of the community knows who we are, and they know they can trust us with this position.”

Barron ran against Juniors Andrew Peng, Lorelei Roof, and Ian Sheshunoff, who each created posters and assembly videos to promote their campaigns before participating in the presidential debate. 

After listening to each candidate speak in the debate, Shirdon Nouh, a Freshman at Cate, selected Barron as his first choice. 

He states, “I think Barron will be a perfect president, for he’s super approachable and will bring the school spirit up. Barron embodies Cate's spirit and will be a great representation of the school.” 

Barron gained enough support from the student body to win the election. However, he believes the debate negatively impacted his campaign, specifically because of Andrew Peng’s performance. 

“It was one of the best performances I have ever seen. Andrew was loud, confident, and straight to the point. It looked as if he did this daily.”

Even though candidates can show videos in assembly or staple posters around campus weeks before voting, they only have one night to prepare for the presidential debate. Overnight, they each develop a personal statement and answers to provided questions. Each candidate must also be ready to answer a question on the spot during the debate. 

Ian Sheshunoff, one of the candidates, reflects on the format of the presidential race. “It's a question of how late you want to stay up preparing versus how much sleep you want to get before the debate itself.” 

Ian said the list of questions was sent out at 9 pm, less than 12 hours before the debate the following morning. 

“12 hours to answer questions is the worst of all worlds. If you give people an actual amount of time to prepare, then they can express themselves fully and can perfect their ideas. The 12-hour limit produces this race of who can come up with the most in 12 hours.” 

The candidates prepare for the debate overnight but have weeks to produce videos or posters. In the 2023 Cate presidential election, Juniors Andy and Adrian’s campaign AAO showed multiple videos in the assembly to gain support. 

Ian continued, “The AAO videos made me want to vote for them even though they said absolutely nothing. They were filmed with professional-grade cameras and real writing weeks ahead of time.”

AAO won the election that year, and a year later, the Braves baseball cap that marks Cate’s president was handed to Joba Samson, who will now give it to Barron. 

Looking forward to next year, Freshman Shirdon states, “Barron was an older brother in a sense. I’m super excited for his presidency.”