Tel Wittmer, On-Campus Allocations Committee chair and junior in secondary education, will be the next student body president.
After a monthslong process of preparing and running, the results from the election show that Wittmer and his running mate Lane Lundeen, junior in fisheries, wildlife and conservation science, received 1,821 votes, amounting to more than 55 percent of the vote.
“I’m very relieved, but humbled and ready to get to work,” Wittmer said. “I’m excited to be in a role that can make a lot of difference for people.”
Hannah Heatherman, speaker of the student senate and senior in finance and organizational management, fell behind. She received 1,455 votes, good for 44.41 percent of the vote.
Additionally, 254 ballots were submitted with a vote for neither candidate.
The transition process with start soon, as Wittmer and Lundeen begin meeting with the current executive branch of Student Governing Association.
Lundeen said after they won the primary earlier this month, Wittmer’s campaign team didn’t get complacent.
“We tried as hard as we could to keep going keep going to different organizations, kept soliciting at different chapters,” Lundeen said.
Heatherman said she doesn’t regret running and still wants to be involved with SGA next year.
“I think that one of my biggest motivations for running was actually knowing that if I didn’t, it’s something that I would regret and so to regret it after the fact just seems trivial,” she said.
She said that this will give her more time to focus on what she’s passionate about in SGA.
“I honestly think not winning will allow me more of an opportunity to push those things through because I won’t be so tied into the figurehead type of things, or answering 60 emails a day,” Heatherman said.
Wittmer said a lot of people put in a lot of time to make his win a reality.
“We’re blessed with everybody on our team and everybody who supported us, and I think it’s a testament to them and how passionate they are about improving the university,” Wittmer said.
