A few short months ago, Sam Dotters-Katz and Johnny Delashaw had never participated in student government. Now, after winning the ASUO election outright in the primary, they are less than a month away from sitting at the helm of a student government that controls more than $11 million.
Dotters-Katz and Delashaw both say they knew few people connected to the ASUO before their campaign started. It wasn’t until they announced their candidacy that established student politicians started offering support. But the executives-elect have been friends for years, with mutual interests in golf and politics.
Both have fathers who are doctors and both were born in the southeastern United States. Dotters-Katz grew up in Chapel Hill, N.C., and moved to Oregon at the end of elementary school. He attended Roosevelt Middle School and South Eugene High School. He said he has worked summers fighting fires across the west.
Delashaw was born in Charlottesville, Va., and moved to West Linn, Ore. at age 7. He graduated from West Linn High School in 2004. He attended the University of San Diego, a Catholic university, after high school, but he was homesick and wanted a school with a better football team and more diversity.

“Johnny and I met freshman year,” Dotters-Katz said. “We actually played in the state golf championships in back-to-back groups, but we never met.”
But they were introduced by mutual friends at the University and “we’ve been buddies ever since.”
Delashaw said “it rapidly developed into a really close friendship,”
Dotters-Katz said they “can speak really freely without offending each other.”
Though he tried to follow the ASUO by reading news articles, Dotters-Katz said it “seemed like this strange world that required translation.”
“It seemed that everything we read and everything we heard was kind of these bits and pieces of a larger story that would never be fully understandable without being 100 percent involved and it was frustrating,” he said.
So they decided to run for office. Dotters-Katz said they went to the Take Back Campus event without any knowledge of Oregon Action Team. The slate would be blended with their executive ticket shortly after the forum, he said.
Dotters-Katz and Delashaw ran what they called an outsider campaign with the interests of “every day” students in mind. After avoiding a run-off election by fewer than 30 votes, Delashaw told the Emerald he hopes the ASUO will not be as divided during their term as it has in years past.
“That will really just come down to the way that individuals act. I know Sam and I have been talking to people who won on the other side and trying to not have that happen,” Delashaw said.
“I think really what it would come down to is before you become colleagues with those people, be their friend too,” he said.
That strategy has been successful with Kari Herinckx, who ran for president on the Rock the Yellow ticket. She and Dotters-Katz have had kind words for each other lately.
“It’s definitely a cordial relationship,” Herinckx said. She said she is still deciding what she will do next year, but she did not rule out having a formal role in Dotters-Katz’ administration.
“I said if the elections didn’t work out I wanted to be involved with the (Black Student Union), but I haven’t ruled anything out or submitted any applications,” Herinckx said. She has “no ill feelings” for Dotters-Katz or Delashaw.
Dotters-Katz said Herinckx is “a really special person” in an interview Monday April 14, three days after his election victory. “Kari and I will always have an open line of communication and I hope she stays involved,” he said.
ASUO President Emily McLain said she has talked to Dotters-Katz about the transition between executives and he has asked many questions about campus issues.
“I think he’s being really inquisitive and really researching the job right now. I think he’s doing a good job,” McLain said.
She said Dotters-Katz spends time in the ASUO office, often talking to Herinckx.
“Every time I see them they’re talking about another campus issue” and bouncing ideas off each other, she said.
Not every relationship will be so easy to reconcile. Herinckx’s campaign manager Matt Rose said that after Delashaw wrote a commentary in the Emerald decrying ASUO insiders, Rose “decided to forego applying for any ASUO executive staff positions.”
Rose was part of the executive team this year as finance coordinator and sat on the Programs Finance Committee last year.
He said some individuals in his campaign who previously worked in the ASUO had only been around a year, and he questioned the validity of the “insider” label.
“I don’t see how people who have experience in doing a job is somehow bad for government,” he said.
Delashaw said his administration will accept students from all over campus to work on staff. He said he was not aware of any applications being turned in yet, but many have speculated that Senate President Athan Papailiou is a likely choice for chief-of-staff.
Dotters-Katz and Delashaw say it all depends on who applies, and Papailiou has not confirmed or denied interest in the position.
Dotters-Katz said Papailiou “really served to advise us on things that wouldn’t have been possible for us as outsiders to be aware of. He really was very important. I think that Athan was very generous with his time, more as an adviser to our campaign.”
Delashaw said he met Papailiou “a month or two before spring break.”
“He just approached us talking about some advice about how to run a campaign,” Delashaw said. Papailiou ran for vice president last year but lost in a tight race. “He really knew what he was doing so we were prone to listen to him.”
Both Dotters-Katz and Delashaw are trying to move past a tumultuous election they will privately admit they did not know they could win. Dotters-Katz says he has maintained optimism about what they can accomplish in office.
“If there’s anything firefighting taught me it’s that if I can stay focused and really remember what I’m supposed to be doing and really remember who I serve, which is the every day student, then I can be successful,” he said.
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