The members of the senior class elected Rory Van Loo ’99 and Ryan Derby-Talbot ’99 as the graduation and Class day speakers last week. Van Loo will speak at commencement on May 16 while Derby-Talbot will speak at the annual Class day on May 15, the day before the commencement ceremonies.

"Senior day is the day when all the awards are handed out and we run the other way through the gates," commented Derby-Talbot.

Van Loo and Derby-Talbot were selected from a pool of 16 candidates. The elections were run by Senior Class President Jason D’Olier and a group of students he organized to conduct the voting.

"An email was sent to the entire Senior class, that said that everyone running for speaker should write a short 250 word statement of whatever way you can use to persuade the class to vote for you." said Derby-Talbot. The 16 statements that were submitted were run in the April 2 issue of The Student Life. Seniors were given a ballot with all the candidates and asked to choose two. The top four vote getters were then entered into a run-off. Van Loo received the most votes in the runoff, earning him the title of graduation speaker, while Derby-Talbot, who received the second most votes, earned the role of Class day speaker.

Commencement speaker John Cleese will follow Van Loo in the lineup of commencement day activities. Van Loo quipped, "I might try to get ahold of him and plan our speeches so we don’t conflict, but I am more worried about the heat putting people to sleep."

Van Loo says he will try to approach the speech with a sense of humor, without forgetting the importance of the event. "If you’re looking for a stand-up comedy routine that will leave your gowns all wet, vote for someone else. I plan to share one or two personal and memorable stories about the lives of fellow seniors. I hope these stories will inspire you and help deliver a message that will last much longer than the laughter the rest of the speech will provoke," he said in his statement in The Student Life.

When asked to go into detail about the speech Van Loo said, "I don’t want it to be a predictable speech, I don’t want to go into detail because it might ruin the surprise."

Van Loo plans to place drop boxes around campus for Seniors to write in their fondest memories. He then plans to use the funniest and most inspiring of these in his speech.

"I think the challenge of it is that you want to be able to capture everyone’s experiences based on your own," said Derby-Talbot, "I want to be able to reflect on our time here and look and see what Pomona has meant to us."