When 2024-2025 co-presidents Leah Horgan ’25 and Nanda Pailla ’25 ran for their elected positions, 20 other students in their form were on the ballot. The competition among their form for this top leadership position at the school, however, wasn’t a cause of anxiety for the two, but a source of comfort in knowing just how many students in their form were similarly “bought into” the St. Andrew’s mission and culture. 

“They have your back,” Pailla says of the Class of 2025. “As soon as I got up to speak, everyone was clapping. It was special. You’re not sure if you want to [run], you’re kind of nervous to go up there and give a speech, but everyone there has your back and they’ve continued to have my back throughout the summer and coming into this year.”

The co-presidents will juggle many responsibilities this school year, including heading Form Council, giving daily announcements at lunch, running weekly School Meetings, working with faculty to serve as a voice for the students, and sitting on the Honor Committee and Discipline Committee. However, when their term ends, Horgan and Pailla will measure their accomplishments by not how many boxes they checked off on their to-do lists, but by the size of the positive impact they left on the people and places that make St. Andrew’s what it is. 

”It’s [about] just striving to make everyone here love this school as much as possible,” says Horgan. “And we obviously want to make [St. Andrew’s] a better place. We want to have people’s voices heard and opinions shared.”

For the seniors, this purpose is the reason they chose to run in the first place: they wanted to give back to the school by sharing their love for it. They both say they came into St. Andrew’s not knowing quite who they were, and that this community provided them the tools and the support system to mature and grow into the people they are today.

And who are they? They’re three-sport athletes, captains, leaders, and volunteers. Pailla, from Chantilly, Virginia, captains the boys soccer team and swim team, and rows in the spring. Horgan, a Wilmington, Delaware native, captains the cross-country team, runs indoor track, and plays soccer in the spring. Over the course of their time at St. Andrew’s, Pailla has given tours as a member of the Cardinal Society and served as a Chapel usher, and Horgan has volunteered for Adaptive Aquatics and served on the Student Vestry and Honor Committee, among other commitments.

Since being elected as co-presidents in the spring of 2024, the two shadowed 2023-2024 co-presidents Charlie Lunsford ’24 and Riya Soni ’24, and since, have homed in on the core values they want to preserve and build on this year, including the no-phone culture and adherence to dress code. 

“All of those different rules that we have in place, [we buy] into because we know that it’s not just dress code, but it’s the way that we all present ourselves to each other,” says Horgan. “So things like that [are about] understanding the bigger picture.”

They also hope to set the standard for the “little” ways that students show up for each other on campus that build school culture: cheering loud when someone goes up at an Open Mic Night or School Meeting and paying attention when others make announcements.

Additionally, Horgan and Pailla aim to strengthen the relationship between students and faculty and staff so that everyone is a part of the St. Andrew’s experience. Progress is already underway on this front: over the summer and through the beginning of the school year, they’ve worked closely with the new faculty as points of contact for the student body. They hope to become touchpoints for the staff of the school, as well. 

“Obviously, we see all of the faculty at lunches and in classes … but there’s so much that happens behind the scenes, and we’ve been lucky enough to be able to see a lot of that stuff,” says Horgan. “But I think sharing that with the rest of the students will be so important throughout the year [in terms of] just making those relationships [and] building those relationships. Knowing [staff] by name is really important.” 

The people—from Pailla’s younger brother, Tejas Pailla ’27, for whom he hopes to leave a positive impact on St. Andrew’s; to the underformers Horgan lives with in Pell, for whom she hopes to serve as a mentor; to the rest of the senior class, on whom they will both lean as they grow as leaders—are what makes serving in this role so special, they say. 

“The people that are here, they all chose to be here and they all want to be here,” says Pailla. “They want to adapt to what they’re not used to. They want to be out of their comfort zone and they want to just thrive as well as they can.”