Having left high school behind me, I was very interested in being a part of student government at Eastern New Mexico University. I felt like I didn't really get to do everything I wanted to do in student council in high school and college would give me a second shot at that.
In college, it was called the Student Senate. You could choose between representing your dorm or representing the department your major was in. My freshman year, it was very easy to get into because no one else from my dorm ran in the election, kind of like how I wound up on the Student Council my junior year in high school.
All we really did was approve spending bills for school funds to go to various functions. We just zipped through them really fast without getting a chance to discuss them. I think that's how real-life legislation works.
Unlike Student Council, we were not very active as a group outside of our weekly meetings. It seemed like a lot of students weren't even aware there was a student government system in place that decided how to spend a portion of student funds that got distributed to the various organizations around campus.
That's not to say that things didn't get dramatic. During one meeting in February of 1983, people were starting to get really irritated about this one particular issue and there was a lot of back and forth. While this was going on, I started feeling really fatigued. When we finally closed the meeting and did the closing prayer, I leaned over so far, I thought my head was about to hit the table.
We started leaving the meeting room. All of a sudden, people started collapsing. I assisted one woman in getting out the door. I felt like I was about to collapse, so I went to the bathroom to splash water on my face. Since I couldn't get enough water in my hands, I plugged up with sink with paper towels. I felt a little bit better and went outside the bathroom. I was really tired and decided to rest a little bit and laid down on the floor.
The next thing I knew, a bunch of people, including an administrator, was carrying me outside the Campus Union Building, where EMTs had arrived and set up a makeshift triage station. I felt better when I got outside, but I had a big headache. I took a couple of puffs of oxygen. They told me to go to the hospital to get checked out, so I went over there, but I didn't take any medication, not even aspirin. They asked me if I had taken any other form of medication.
Other people had it a lot worse and had to be hospitalized. I went home and got a good night's sleep. When I woke up the next morning, the headache was mostly gone, but I could still feel a little tingle from it. However, most of the other people caught up in the action complained of headaches for weeks on end, especially those who had to be hospitalized.
It turned out there was a carbon monoxide leak in the ceiling in the meeting room. There was not enough carbon monoxide in the air to kill us, just enough to make us woozy. They said that if we had gotten carbon monoxide poisoning, once we laid down and fell asleep, we would be dead.
A couple of weeks later, I had to talk to the college's insurance adjuster. They told me my bill came to $60. "WHAT? But all I did was take a couple of breaths of oxygen!" The adjuster assured me that I was not going to have to pay that, the college would take care of it. I still found it shocking that just breathing in a little oxygen would run that much. Thank goodness we get it for free every day.
A few weeks later, student elections for President and Vice President were taking place. A debate was held in the auditorium in the School of Business. During the debate, I started experiencing "deja vu" for the first time in my life. I started feeling like I did that day of the carbon monoxide leak. Just as I was thinking this, two of the students who were hospitalized suddenly got up and ran out of the room without saying anything. They were experiencing the exact same thing I was, but it felt more threatening for them.
The other dramatic thing my freshman year was that we tried to kick our student body president out of office. He had used student funds to get rather expensive gifts for everyone in his administration and gold pocket watch for himself. We had to hold a public hearing before putting it to a vote. The public meeting was a witch hunt that shouldn't have happened in the first place because we did not have an actual quorum. After that shameless display of political strife, we voted against forcing him out of office. But everyone still got their gifts and he got to keep the watch.
I didn't get elected to Student Senate my sophomore year. I guess the gas attack and the impeachment of the president raised the profile of the Student Senate. Two other people from the dorm ran the next year and I came in last place. The next year, I ran to represent the College of Liberal Arts, which was the department Radio/TV was located. I lost that one, too. However, the person who did win quit at the semester and they asked me to take the seat.
I was elected my senior year. I was made the Parliamentarian and the head of the Rules Committee. About 20 years after I graduated, I looked at my ENMU yearbook from 1986. It showed me posed with other members of the committee. For the life of me, I couldn't remember attending one meeting with those people. I know meetings took place because they were supposed to, but I didn't remember getting together with those particular students. I guess my senior year was more of a blur than I would have like to have imagined.
About 10 years later, I would attempt to get involved in getting elected to a real public office, but I never even got my name on the ballot. That's a post for a much later date.
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