DaRon McGee, Bridgett Johnson, Jessica Fenger and Matthew Ferguson will take office May 1.

The People's Party dominates SGA elections

By: Derek Simons

Posted: 4/14/08

With more than 50 percent of the vote for the top two positions, Bridgett Johnson and DaRon McGee led their ticket to a clean sweep of the positions on the new Student Government Association (SGA) Executive Board for 2008-09.

Johnson and McGee, elected president and executive vice president respectively, will be joined by the other two members of the People's Party: Moving UMKC Forward ticket.

They are Jessica Fenger, administrative vice president, and Matthew Ferguson, comptroller.

Johnson said she was "crying for joy, jumping for joy" on Thursday evening when the results of the three days of voting were posted.

"I didn't think I wasn't going to get it," she said. "I just didn't know what I would do if I didn't get it. I felt confident we'd do really well. All of us worked really hard."

Both Johnson and McGee said they had gotten little sleep during election week.

"E-mails were being sent out at 3 a.m.," Johnson said. "Text message went out saying, 'Remember - you can vote right now.' And we're really happy with the number of students who turned out to vote in comparison to last year."

The newly-elected president said she will be at all the University of Missouri System Board of Curators meetings, as well as the Intercampus Student Council appointments.

McGee will be in charge of lobbying efforts in Jefferson City.

"I will be pushing for better medical professionals on campus, which is very important," he said. "I'll also be making sure we have more money for scholarships."

Asked what topics students mentioned most frequently during election week, Johnson cited campus safety, better campus facilities and campus facilities being open for longer hours.

"It really depended on where you were campaigning," Johnson said. "If you were in Royall [Hall], you were dealing with more commuter students, so they didn't really care about the cafeteria being open until 11 p.m., but they did care about campus safety."

McGee said the election was a direct reflection of what the students wanted, and the number of votes their ticket received constituted a mandate.

"I think [the students] want change," McGee said, "change with experience."

Johnson said she will work hard toward getting more students involved with the SGA.

"Some people didn't even know there was an SGA election happening," she said. "That's got to change. We've got to make it so SGA has more events, has its name on more things."

She said they are already working with the administration on certain issues to make sure progress is made.

"We're going to fulfill all the promises we made," Johnson said. "We really look forward to making UMKC better."

dsimons@unews.com