By Andrea Candrian
No more yellow posters, no more campaigning, no more infractions. The BYUSA elections are over and a new president has been announced.
In the Wilkinson Center ballroom Friday night Feb. 21, Rob Foster, BYUSA president, announced Dave Johnson and Sam Glanzer as the new president and vice president for the 2003-2004 school year.
Johnson and Glanzer received 57.63 percent of the 6,325 votes.
Natalie Cook and Bryan Bush received 42.37 percent of the total votes.
In his acceptance speech, Johnson expressed gratitude towards their supporters – especially students.
“Sam and I are really excited and grateful for all those students that turned out and voted,” he said. “We are grateful for all the students on campus, and for the wonderful encouragement we”ve gotten the entire time. We”re really excited about our opportunity to serve and excited about our vision of building a Zion campus.”
Johnson also gave credit to his competitors, Cook and Bush.
“They are amazing,” Johnson said. “They have great records of service.”
Bush said he and Cook were disappointed but happy with the election process.
Despite not being able to campaign on Friday because of campaigning infractions, Johnson and Glanzer were still happy with the results.
“We felt it was a very severe penalty, more than we deserve, but we won”t complain because of the outcome,” Johnson said.
Mass emails had been sent out by different individuals and clubs, endorsing the campaign, he said.
“None of them were for us, and none of them were by us,” he said. “Some of them were negative. Anyone who makes fun of any character or any issues like that, doesn”t belong to our campaign.”
Those who were against Cook and Bush”s campaign were also passing out degrading fliers.
Johnson said he only heard about the fliers but never actually saw them.
Students agree that the fliers were inappropriate and demeaning.
Jeff Hallstrom, 22, a sophomore from Mission Viejo, Calif., majoring in computer science, was handed such a flier by a male with “a smirk on his face,” and described it as a strip of paper with a picture of Cook”s face on it, with angry eyebrows drawn in and a negative message attached.
“It made me decide not to vote,” Hallstrom said. “Because it made me wonder who made it.”
“There is no room in BYUSA, for people that want to throw insults around and be negative,” Johnson said. “That is not the purpose of the organization. It is not acceptable. We have taken every step to make sure that everyone knows that Sam and I don”t tolerate that.”
Johnson and Glanzer”s campaign manager, Joel Frost, 24, a junior from Sho Low, Ariz., majoring in marketing, said that most of the infractions that took place during the election were unknowingly done.
“It”s hard to brief everyone on all the issues,” Frost said. “They”re pretty innocently done. Although some were very blatant.”
Frost said he really admired Cook and Bush”s campaign manager, Kim Gardner.
“I really admire her work,” he said. “I felt intimidated seeing how organized they were.”
Glanzer agreed with Frost on the organization of their competitors campaign.
“They ran a great campaign -very organized,” Glanzer said. “I have the highest respect for Natalie and Bryan. They”re very honorable people with superb character and it has been a pleasure and a challenge to run against them.”
Beginning next week Johnson and Glanzer will start BYUSA training.
“We”re definitely going to get our rest and get ready to train and interview some VP”s,” Johnson said. “The applications will be starting in a week for that. We”re very excited of the opportunity to interview a cabinet of individuals that will be able to help support the vision that we”re trying to inspire.”
