Grady Brimley named 2008-2009 ASUSU president by 366
After being elected ASUSU president for the 2008-2009 school year, Grady Brimley, winning 1,480-1,114 to Nick West, said “USU is the best school in … heck, anywhere!”
Election results were announced Wednesday in the International Lounge at 5 p.m. after weeks of campaigning.
Vice president position winners included Jackson Olsen for executive vice president, Steven Russell for student advocate vice president, Lance Brown for athletic vice president, Chase Skidmore for diversity and organization vice president, John Parrish for programming vice president and Adam Fowles for graduate studies vice president.
Jeremy Jennings was elected the academic senate president, and the elected college senators were Business Senator Adam Croshaw, Education Senator Jonathan Kidd, Engineering Senator Victoria Kmetzsch, Science Senator Lance Pfleiger, Natural Resources Senator Shannon Moore, and after some miscommunication, Ben Pollock was named Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences senator.
The race for HASS was very tight, 319-298, and Lee Cannon was first declared HASS senator, but after some clarification, Ben Pollock took his place on stage among the new ASUSU elected officials.
After the confusion, Cannon said, “I was prepared to win and I was prepared to lose but I wasn’t prepared to do both.”
He said there are at least two people who double check the results and the names placed in envelopes. However, he said, that obviously didn’t work.
ASUSU adviser Nellene Stevens issued a formal apology and said, “As a staff adviser for the ASUSU elections I would like to apologize to Lee Cannon and his supporters for the mistake in announcing the winner of the College of HASS senatorial race. It was my responsibility to double check all of the envelopes before they were sealed. The mistake was mine and I take full responsibility. Thank you to Lee for the way he graciously handled the situation and I give me deepest apologies.”
Other positions named Wednesday were the new graduate studies senators who are Prabuddha Ghosh for business, Ranjitha Dhanasekaran for international studies, Bobbe Allen for education, Muyiwa Ogunlaja for engineering, Rebecca Smith for HASS, and Nora Burbank for Natural Resources.
Students also had the opportunity to vote for the referendum for Aggie Blue Bikes, which would have allotted 120 bikes from Aggie Blue Bikes to be borrowed during the semester by students for a one dollar rise in student fees, but failed by 16 votes.
After the rest of the student body positions were announced and seated on stage, Brimley was announced president. During his acceptance speech, he said he was not going to change, that he was going to stay in touch with students by going to activities, hanging out in the Hub, and he wouldn’t just “hang out on the third floor.”
“I am way excited to help Utah State and represent the students,” Brimley said. “ASUSU is for the students, so if you have any ideas, or there is anything you would like to do with ASUSU, let’s do it, let’s make it happen.”
-lindsay.anderson@aggiemail.usu.edu