Onek elected WSGA president

The results are in, and 27 senators will be joining WSGA president-elect Caley Onek and vice president-elect Lucas Mullin during the 2010-11 school year.

The results of the 2010-11 WSGA elections were announced Friday afternoon in the basement of the Memorial Union, a mere four hours after voting was finalized. While some were unsure about their future with WSGA, at least two candidates were fairly certain they would be serving Washburn next school year.

The elections, which ran March 3-5, were unique this year in that only one pair of politicians were officially campaigning for the spot of president and vice president. The lack of choice may have been reflected in the poll numbers, as less than half as many voters as last year (555 this year compared to a record 1,388 last year) participated.

However, the Onek/Mullin campaign received only 420 of the actual presidential votes. Some other combination of Onek and Mullin accounted for 12 of the votes, with 16 other write-in candidates receiving one vote each. Other votes were divvied up between combinations of Chris Marshall/Heather Gelsinger and Will Lawrence/Sadye Mages.

While the Onek/Mullin team didn’t face an organized opposition, the candidates did campaign. A platform listed on their official Web site, www.caleyandlucas.com, includes a summary of what they hope to accomplish during the 2010-11 school year. These goals include uniting students through improved student-faculty relations and attendance at campus events, a “Blackboard” system that would allow students to check their grades throughout the semester, creating a board of Washburn students and faculty to help make the university more green-friendly and a “BodBox” DVD rental system on campus, similar to RedBox.

While the current administration has had a lot on its plate, with such issues as the Washburn Transformational Experience and PE 198 becoming optional and the adoption of a Success Week, current vice president Onek is looking ahead to what the future holds for her administration.

“Oh my gosh,” said Onek. “I’m so excited right now and I’m just really, really honored to be even voted for this. I can’t even talk I’m so excited right now. Thank you so much to everybody for all the support we have gotten over the last year and everybody’s just been really great and I’m really excited to work with Lucas and all the senators that just got elected.”

Mullin, currently WSGA chief of staff, shared the same sentiments about his newly-elected title and the responsibilities that come with it.

“I’m real excited,” said Mullin. “Me and Caley are really excited to get this year going. We had a really great [year] this past year. We look forward to serving the next year. Especially with all the new faces that are going to be on WSGA.”

Of the 35 students that ran for senatorial spots, 27 were elected to serve next year. Taylor McGown received the highest number of votes with 336, followed by Nicole Perkuhn (284), Dlany Conny (281), Jarrod Cullan (254) and Amber Kissell (252). The eight official candidates that didn’t make the cut were Bobby Chipman, Michael Kitowski, John Troutt, Caleb Reid, Kate Larson, Adam Wetzel, Kylie Rothlisberger and Nicholas Campbell. Other students to receive write-in votes were Lauren Himpel (4), Angel Romero (3), Brock Chart (2), Kandace Bitts (2) and 33 other individuals receiving one vote each.

For the full election results, go to http://www.mywsga.com/site/electionresults.pdf.