In a night brimming with magic, music and comedy, anxiety filled the air about both who would win Weber’s Got Talent and who would win the Weber State University Student Association elections.
The results for both are in.
WSUSA’s election results were revealed throughout the night between 10 acts participating in Weber’s Got Talent in the Shepherd Union Ballrooms on March 18.
Some WSUSA races were neck-and-neck, like the one for Activities Vice President. Noor Mouhammad beat Wilson Tagoa’i Atagi by a mere 2.3 percent in points.
Other races, like Weber’s next WSUSA president, didn’t come as a shock since two of the three candidates dropped out of the running for the presidency. But that didn’t stop winner Gregory J. Woodfield from campaigning this week.
Since anyone could have filled out a packet to be a write-in candidate, Woodfield wanted to make sure he did everything he could in his campaign.
“I worked my tail off,” Woodfield said. “It feels good to know that I didn’t just sit back and say I’m running uncontested.”
There are always a lot of write-in candidates in WSUSA elections, whether students are voting for themselves or putting in fake names just to be funny; however, Woodfield explained that write-ins are still encouraged if it means getting more students to vote.
“This year, we had the most votes in recorded history of WSUSA,” Woodfield said. The total votes cast this year was 1,843.
Woodfield won the race for 2016-17 WSUSA President with 1,423 votes, 300 abstentions and 96 write-ins.
After serving as Vice President of Clubs and Organizations this year and his involvement in WSUSA for the last three years, Woodfield said he was glad to be next year’s president.
“I’m pumped,” he said. “Honestly I couldn’t be more excited.”
Probably the most contentious part of this year’s campaign was the race for 2016-17 WSUSA Services Vice President. Three of the service candidates—Kasey Call, Morgan Gardiner and Hannah Smith—had been disqualified for failing to submit their spending limit forms before the deadline. However, the candidates were still allowed to run as write-in candidates.
Service Vice President winner Morgan Gardiner said, “We hit a point where we were like, ‘We don’t care who wins. We just want someone to represent Weber State and the service team well.’”
Even after her disqualification, Gardiner campaigned hard this week. “I fought, and it paid off,” Gardiner said. “I’m kinda speechless.”
Gardiner won with 289 write-in votes. Votes that were cast for the service candidates before 10:07 a.m. on March 15 were thrown out due to the candidates’ disqualifications.
The rest of the election winners:
Hayley Tomney for WSUSA Davis Campus Vice President with 1,117 votes.
Landon Bickley for WSUSA Leadership Vice President with 1,004 votes.
Marc DeYoung for WSUSA Clubs and Organizations Vice President with 819 votes.
Jeff Henry for WSUSA Legislative Vice President (Senate) with 632 votes.
Noor Mouhammad for WSUSA Activities Vice President with 778 votes.
Hailame Kinikini for WSUSA Diversity Vice President with 864 votes.
With cash prizes for first, second and third place, participants in Weber’s Got Talent also felt some butterflies flying on Friday night.
The first place prize of $500 went to the band Stillwater for their rousing performance of Charlie Daniels Band’s “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.”
Second place winner Caralee Wallentine received $300 for her rendition of Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You.”
Third place went to the one non-musical act of the night. First-year Weber State student Erin Dominguez won $200 for her prowess with Rubik’s Cubes.
Dominguez’s act promised to solve five Rubik’s Cubes in around 3 ½ minutes. Right before her act began, one of the judges accidentally broke one of her cubes. The judge put it back together and took it onstage to Dominguez while she was in the middle of her act, and she still solved all five Rubik’s Cubes in 3 minutes and 26 seconds.
Dominguez started collecting Rubik’s Cubes when she was a kid. She currently has around 75 Rubik’s Cubes, but she may use her money to buy even more. “I don’t think 75 is enough,” Dominguez said.
One honorable mention goes out to the band Ties for Tolliver who premiered their own song “4 Door.”
Band member Austin Berenyi said that he and his bandmate Adam Manwill experimented with writing a song in one sitting. They spent eight hours in a car driving all around Ogden.
“I honestly didn’t think it would take that long,” Berenyi said. “And it didn’t feel that long.”
Berenyi also jerry-rigged a mini percussion set by strapping a tambourine to one foot and hitting a bass drum with the other foot all while singing and playing guitar.
Berenyi said that the performance at Weber’s Got Talent was the first time he had gone through the entire song with that makeshift drumset.
