If you happen to catch President Richard Myers zooming by on a royal purple golf cart on campus, you’re not dreaming.
The new addition to Kansas State’s transportation repertoire was gifted to Myers by alum Eric Stonestreet while he was in California over the summer.
#KStateSocial was "Riding with President Myers" today. Watch our Instagram story, account kansasstateuniversity, to see all the fun.
Keep an eye out for the purple golf cart throughout the semester, too! pic.twitter.com/dmpi3fGtti
— K-State (@KState) August 30, 2018
Linda Cook, Myers’ chief of staff and director of community relations, said Myers came up with the idea of giving students rides to class with the golf cart when it arrived on campus in August.
Cook said Myers thought this would give him an opportunity to connect with students in a brand new way.
Grant Thompson, junior in mass communications, was on the team at the Department of Communications and Marketing that decided to promote the president’s new ride using Instagram stories, but said the team struggled to picture the idea.
Thompson said it was his idea to make a video similar to James Corden’s The Late Late Show recurring segment, Carpool Karaoke.
The video, which aired on Aug. 30, documented the golf cart’s inaugural spin with students. Myers and Thompson picked up a few students of various majors, backgrounds and destinations for about half an hour. Myers asked students how they were doing in classes and about how they were doing with their personal lives as well.
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Q&A: President Myers talks falling in love with K-State, 2025 initiative
Gabby Coleman, senior in architecture, was one of the students featured in the video. Coleman said the experience went by really fast, but said she was surprised how normal it felt to talk with Myers about herself.
“I felt like he was interested in genuinely connecting with us,” Coleman said.
Thompson said his goal for the video was to show off President Myers in a non-presidential way.
Both Coleman and Thompson said they thought the video made the President seem more approachable. The video has been viewed over 50,000 times on Facebook.
“Students were talking about this all over campus,” Cook said.
Cook said the plan is for the president to continue to use his purple golf cart to transport students to class as long as his schedule allows it. As for more videos, Thompson said to keep your eyes open for a potential series.
