On March 24, David Jones was elected the new Student Member of the Elgin Community College Board of Trustees; this concluded a full week of voting from ECC’s student body. Jones, however, did not believe he was going to win.

“Absolutely not, and I’m being completely honest, I’m not very well known, I did not expect it, I had a push from a couple of friends to go out there and do it and what hit me the hardest is seeing that anyone is capable of anything,” Jones said.

First year Senator Brenden McGlinn was actually at the voting booth while the voting was taking place. He was also was just elected to be the new ICCB student trustee.

McGlinn, however, was not surprised that Jones won the election.

“No, I actually was not surprised in the turnout; I want to start off by saying that there were a lot of strong candidates in the race. To be honest, I was very excited about all of them and I’ve known David since I got here. He is someone who is very ambitious which is something that we don’t really have, he kind of brings that connection from the student body to student life because he is kind of that outsider but at the same time brings a very strong view point,” McGlinn said.

Unconfirmed reports have come out announcing that Jones won more than 50% of the vote.

Jones’s up-close-and-personal-approach to the election might have given him a step above his competition when scoring over votes, which consisted of personally talking to students instead of putting up posters on bulletin boards around the school, which is a traditional method most students take to campaign.

This concludes a long line of previous positions that Jones has had in Student Life and Student Government. Starting in 2013, he was a senator. He also was a treasurer and vice president of SWANS and a treasurer of USAC here at ECC since then.

Serving the people is one of his major goals that he hopes to bring to ECC.

“Well interestingly enough the main thing that I ran on was not admitting that I don’t have all the answers but wanting to serve the people. I wanted to be someone that gave the voice back to the student body. I have noticed more often than not and my peers in life have noticed a divide between the student body and student life as far as engagement, so what I wanted to do while I was campaigning was that I did not make flyers, I went up to the students and asked them what they wanted to see change,” Jones said.

Jones also believes that not making the posters helped his chances against the other competitors, while saying the other candidates did great.

“I just want to start off by saying my competitors did great, I think what really set the tone was the demographic. Going up to people and shaking their hand and telling them this is my name and this is what I want to do and what are your concerns. I think that made people want to go out and vote,” Jones said.

During his time of asking people about their issues, a couple of recurring concerns came to his attention.

“A lot of concerns that people had were like lunch prices, book prices things that may not get done. There were some people who were saying clubs should get more funding or building B should get a new microwave which I think is very doable,” Jones said.

He hopes to get this done quickly and thoroughly.

“I hope to get this done by working close with the board of trustees and figuring out what we are capable of doing, I think that it is very easy to go around and say that I’m going to do that, but the truth of the matter is that I’m still learning what I can do and to best serve my community,” Jones said.

The term limit is one full year without possible reelection.