The Candidates: Ball and Pumphrey are committed to service

By Jacob Factor, Features Editor   (Courtesy photo/Jonny Ball)

“We care about the student body. Jonny and I have the commitment to service. We’re not afraid to be that persistent professional voice and ask the tough questions.”

Jonny Ball is a junior biology major. He grew up on a Christian campground in Anadarko, Okla. His background, he said, gave him his reason for running for student body president.

“Every year was about the people that came to camp and about serving them,” he said.

“[The camp] kind of instilled in me life is about other people.”

Ball said his platform reflects this mindset. Community, communication and credibility are his three main focuses.

For community, Ball said he wants to help people realize their own goals and dreams and help them start clubs and organizations based on what they love to do.

He also said he wants to give student-athletes a voice in the rest of the OBU community.

“It’s hard sometimes to bridge the gap between student athletes and students who aren’t athletes.”

To remedy this, Ball said he wants to partner with SAAC and give them a spot in SGA and increase attendance at sporting events.

“If you want to be involved in a student athlete’s life, it’s important to support them.”

The next area of focus in Ball’s platform is communication which is all about transparency.

“SGA serves as a conduit for communication between administration and student.”

Ball said he wants to add student body president office hours so students can go to his office, which is on the second floor of the GC, and talk with him about what’s going on.

“There’s a lot more going on with topics than what we see sometimes, so it’s easy to get frustrated,” he said.

“Anything that we want to make happen, we’re going to be transparent about it, and if it doesn’t happen, we want to be transparent about why it didn’t happen.”

Ball said for the last area of focus, credibility, he wants his reputation to speak for itself.

He and his vice president running mate, junior Josh Pumphrey, have worked in CAB, Res Life, the Success Center and SGA, so Ball said he and Pumphrey are equipped with the leadership abilities needed to be student body president.