Spirited Blazers need no opponents

Many Blazers have expressed dismay that next year's SGA president just won her position in an uncontested election. It's pathetic, the complaint goes, that only one person was willing to step up to fill the most prestigious student position available at Blair. Teachers and students are sadly shaking their heads and shrugging their shoulders at this apparent demonstration of how apathetic and dispirited Blazers have become.

Not so. Blazer pride is still strong. The election situation is not an embarrassment, nor does it spell doom for the future of Blair spirit.

The SGA isn't a political institution like Congress or the County Council, where elections create winners and losers and help decide whose interests will be given first priority. It's more like the PTSA, where a few dedicated people donate their time and energy to carry out tasks that benefit the rest of us. In these sort of organizations, rarely do issues become so contentious that an election is needed to sort them out. It is only because SGA elections are run like political races, with speeches and campaigning, that an uncontested election seems so shocking.

In reality, the platforms candidates run on are not particularly important; most students admit that they don't base their votes on campaign promises. Whomever is elected will perform the same duties that the student body president has performed for years, like organizing drives and raising funds for Blair. Next year's SGA president will do the same thing. So will her successor.

Sara Furlow, our newly-elected SGA president, is volunteering a great deal of time and energy for those duties. If there had been other students willing to step forward, that would have been a bonus. But the fact that other students did not choose to make that commitment does not necessarily demonstrate a lack of motivation among Blazers; there are plenty of ways for students to help besides being SGA president. The uncontested election simply shows that one student, instead of two or three, wanted to offer her services through the SGA venue.