Kansas University students have elected Michael Wade Smith, a junior from Goodland, as their next student body president.

Smith and his vice presidential running mate, Megan Ritter, an Overland Park sophomore, won nearly two-thirds of the nearly 3,000 votes cast.

Michael Wade Smith

Basking in the glow of an exuberant election party at the Yacht Club, Smith credited the victory to the work of the members of his KUnited coalition, which won nearly every Student Senate seat it ran for.

He said he will push for a set of 16 issues that his campaign ran on, including an effort to get a new aquatic center at KU.

Such a facility would likely include new swimming pools for students, and could feature a lazy river, Smith said.

He cautioned, however, that money was tight, and that the focus may have to be on other issues that didn’t have large costs associated with them.

“I don’t know if you’re going to see too many major projects being built,” he said.

Still, it was an “amazing, amazing feeling” to get such support from students, he said.

All of the issues he ran on came from ideas of other students, he said.

“These are things they wanted to do on campus,” he said. “When they do change, students will be excited.”