Juniors Steven Strutt and Olivia Moran will be NDA’s FanMan and Mermaid next school year. These coveted roles are determined by a vote from the entire student body, and those selected are the school’s representatives at all sporting events.

The tradition of FanMan and Mermaid as spirit leaders was started by students many years ago, but the leadership entailed led to the two spirit leaders becoming a part of the Executive Board of Student Government.  Hence, the all-school election that resulted in Strutt and Moran earning “the cape and tail.”

Olivia Moran, who was selected as Mermaid for next year, says that she has wanted to be the Mermaid since her freshman year. She explained, “As the years went by watching the past Mermaids, it just made me want to do it even more. I want to be the person up there leading the cheers and setting a good example for the other students at NDA.”

Moran agrees that all the past Mermaids have done a great job. She says she will try to follow what they have done in past years. In addition, she will try to get a lot of people to all the different kinds of sporting events throughout the whole year.

To Moran, having school spirit means “being behind your school 100% no matter what. It also means going to all the sporting events that you can and cheering loud.” She hopes to represent school spirit at school and in the public by “having good sportsmanship and representing the school’s core values.”

“I’m  so excited that I am the Mermaid!” Moran said. “I think that I am most excited for the first football game because that will be the start of it all and a great year.”

Junior Steven Strutt was selected as the school’s FanMan for next year. He says that he wanted to become Fanman because he wanted to lead cheers and cheer on athletes in all sports.

One thing Strutt wants to do differently than the past FanMans is to make it to more sporting events and to different sports that may not be as popular to the student body such as soccer, tennis and cross country.

He hopes to encourage more participation in the student body by including more people in the cheers and to encourage people to participate in sports and clubs.

Together Strutt and Moran hope to incorporate new game-dress themes such as  American-out, tie-dye and Hawaiian out.

Strutt is most looking forward to “leading the run into the football stands, waving the NDA flag, leading cheers and doing the push-ups.”