Ander Aretakis and David Ryan will be the co-chairs for Dance Marathon 2015, the organization announced Friday.

Aretakis and Ryan, both Weinberg juniors, will head the executive board for the 41st year of Dance Marathon. They will succeed executive co-chairs Anna Radoff, a Weinberg senior, and Josh Parish, a SESP senior.

“I just had such an intense rush of emotion that it had worked out and I had been selected,” Ryan said about hearing the news. “To do Dance Marathon again is exciting but in such a special capacity.”

Ryan was a Technology committee co-chair and led the website redesign for Northwestern’s largest philanthropy. He said because so much of DM has online elements, he was able to keep up to date with each of the committees and the events.

As an executive co-chair he said he’s anxious to be more involved with “a new group of committed students.”

“It’s just vehicle where I could pour my heart and soul into the organization,” he said.

This year, Aretakis was one of the Dancer Relations co-chairs and  was in charge of the Hero Program for the primary beneficiary, Team Joseph.

“From this past DM we laid the groundwork for a lot of really good initiatives,” he said. “Things like trying to find a way to get other student groups involved, we really want to keep going this year.”

Aretakis added that Radoff and Parish had been supportive of him throughout this past year.

“They were very much mentors and people who really challenged me throughout the year,” he said. “I had a lot of things on my plate and they were supportive of that and helping me learn how to be a student leader. They pushed me to go above and beyond what I thought I could do and help other people get there too.”

Both students said they were excited to pick a new executive board, to choose a primary beneficiary for next year and to build a close relationship with its representatives.

“We’ve had the incredible privilege of watching them grow as leaders, and know that they’ll surpass our highest expectations with their passion and drive,” Radoff said of the two new co-chairs in a news release.

Dance Marathon will be March 6-8, 2015.

This story has been updated with comments from Aretakis and Ryan. 

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