SGA Election

Photo+provided+by+McCray+White+and+Molly+Hignite

Photo provided by McCray White and Molly Hignite

Allison Boyd, Staff Writer

One big way students can get involved at RJR is through the Student Government Association (SGA). This year, 14 students ran for one of the four positions: president, vice president, underclassmen president, and secretary. Students get to vote for who they want to get each position through a google survey.

This year we had 632 students vote,” club sponsor Troy Colvard said. “This is actually a little higher than years past. Usually, we have numbers more in the 500 range.”

Out of the 14 students who ran, the students who won were senior McCray White as president, junior Molly Hignite as vice president, sophomore Luke Cambell as underclassman president, and freshmen Molly Stitzel as secretary. The candidates who ran faced many challenges to adjust to the changes the pandemic brought. While online school and the pandemic seemed like it would have had a more negative impact on the election, students were able to navigate the challenges and got an even larger result than normal. 

This election is probably one of the things that COVID and Online School have affected the least, I think way more people voted than expected,” Stitzel said. “Especially with all the technology that our generation has, it was relatively easy to get the word out about the election this year.”

In a typical school year, students running for a position will do things like hang up posters around RJR to get the word out about them running. This year since students were unable to see these posters they had to find a different way to campaign. 

I created 5 virtual flyers and posted them on my social media pages, promoting a new sense of “togetherness” as my platform,” White said. 

Many candidates posted on their social media to let people know they were running and how to vote. This allowed the survey to reach more students, which increased the number of votes in the election. Despite this, there were still many challenges that came with this election.

The biggest challenge was just getting the word around without being annoying, because I spammed it a lot,” Cambell said. “Another thing is just getting people to put a little bit of faith in you, which again with the way I present myself it could either be really easy or really hard for different people. Aside from all the challenges in running, the real challenges will be getting things done around Reynolds and our community, which are challenges I am willing to face.”

Each candidate came up with a plan that they wanted to put in place if they won. These ideas helped students to decide who they wanted to vote for. President McCray White came up with her hopes and goals for this school year. 

Reynolds has a very large student body of more than 1,600 students,” White said. “Virtual classes have magnified the separation we have been feeling during the pandemic. My goal as SGA president is to help the student body to feel as united and connected with their classmates and teachers as possible while we are all online together.

Vice President Molly Hignite also had more ideas to contribute to McCray White’s plans. 

This year will definitely be a lot different because of COVID, but there are lots of potential food drives, coat drives, and ideas for keeping our demon morale up!” Hignite said.

Underclassman president Luke Cambell’s plans are more focused on the art piece of RJR. 

“My main policy was adding more opportunities for kids to display their art, especially music, allowing there to be more talent shows,” Campbell said. “Another one of my main policies was allowing Reynolds to interact more with the community around it, like helping out with Food Drives and starting fundraisers, mostly based around food since I like cooking and some folks need food this time of the year more than others may realize.”

Lastly, secretary Molly Stitzel also came up with her own plans for this year. 

I’d say the biggest thing for this school year is trying to keep everyone connected through virtual means, seeing as we can’t in person,” Stitzel said. “One thing we’ve already done is create an SGA Instagram account, and we’re hoping to find more ways to connect virtually coming up over the holidays.”

All the students who won the election have great plans for this year and are up to the challenge that the pandemic has caused for this school year.