Voters named Casey Pond president and Christina “Mo” Vazquez Mauricio first lady in GW’s first-ever President and First Lady Competition.

The announcement was made Friday night at Colonials Invasion.

The President and First Lady Competition made its debut as part of Sprit Week, which culminated in Friday night’s events at Smith Center. The competition is similar to those held as part of a typical high school’s homecoming. For this year’s spirit week, the GW spirit committee wanted to start a new event that would boost the involvement from GW students.

“We wanted to get as many students as possible involved in the week, and based on student input and feedback, this was one event that our student planning committee developed,” wrote Josh Hartman, operations and special projects manager for the GW Spirit Program, in an e-mail.

To become eligible for candidacy, students had to be a junior or senior and to collect signatures from 25 individuals who support their nominations. The GW spirit committee released candidate nominations a few weeks before the start of Spirit Week. Hartman said on campus of roughly 10,000 undergraduates, it is difficult to find candidates that everyone will know.

“We posted candidate profiles for each finalist on our Web site so students can learn a bit about each finalist before voting,” Hartman said.

In addition to Pond, candidates for president included Marc Abanto, Chris Burke, Mike Rossetti and John Estrada. The other three candidates for First Lady were Alyscia Eisen, Lauen O’Donoghue and Gina Fernandes.

Pond, who lost a bid last year for Student Association president, accepted his victory graciously.

“Honestly, it was an honor to be running in the same category as Mike, John, Marc and Chris,” Pond wrote in an e-mail. “It was a lot of fun because these are some of the guys who I have seen around campus since freshmen year, always doing something to enhance campus spirit.”