The Daily Mississippian

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DailyMississippian The

thedmonline.com

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Vol. 100 No. 210

Personality elections bring out the best and worst

PETRE THOMAS | The Daily Mississippian

QUENTIN WINSTINE | The Daily Mississippian

Left: Mary Alex Street supporters campaign in front of the library. Right: Emily Monsour supporters campaign near the Trent Lott Leadership Institute.

BY JACOB BATTE thedmnews@gmail.com

While the nation worries about its national debt, soldiers returning from home and who to vote for in the 2012 elections, the University of Mississippi lived through its own mini controversy these past two weeks. On Tuesday Oct. 25, the university held the primary elections for the personality candidates on campus. What came out of the election was a Female Campus Favorite who didn’t want to be on

the ballot, two potential senior maids placed on other ballots and a long, drawn out process to determine who would become Miss Ole Miss. “Campus favorite, it was a mess,” Evan Kirkham, ASB attorney general said. “The elections commission and myself handled it completely wrong.” According to Kirkham, Brittany Richardson, who filled out a petition to be a senior maid, was on the ballot for Campus Favorite. Richardson informed the commission around noon on election day.

“We thought ‘Oh, wow,’ Well there are 40 girls, and there has already been a big chunk of voting that has already happened,” Kirkham said. “It was a quick decision; we decided we’re going to keep this campaign rolling, I guess we hope (Richardson) doesn’t win, and if she does, we’ll deal with it, and she (won).” Kirkham said he and deputy attorney general Nick Castiglia were unsure of how to deal with the issue at the time. “We were made aware of the issue really late in the process, and at the time, we were so bombard-

ed by other big issues throughout the day, we kind of overlooked it,” Castiglia said. Castiglia said he has heard speculation that the oversight was done intentionally, but he and Kirkham assure there was no malicious behavior behind the mistake. “That was just pure oversight by the elections commission, and misjudgement on our behalf, and I’m willing to admit that, and the commission is as well,” Kirkham said. “I know this means a lot to people, and to take one spot away is downright rude on our part. We

hope that anyone that was affected by it will accept our apology.” Kirkham said even though they knew they made a mistake, he and Castiglia knew they could not redo the election. “We couldn’t strip the four girls that had actually won, and we didn’t want to put the 40 of them through that process again,” Kirkham said. “Once we made the decision, we couldn’t go back, so we really apologize. It put us in a weird spot, along with all of the girls. See MISS OLE MISS, PAGE 5

UMMC receives record amount of funding BY MEGAN SMITH megansmith67@gmail.com

The University of Mississippi Medical Center received a record $85 million in grants and contracts in fiscal year 2011. This figure is approximately a 12 percent increase from the 2010 figure. Despite receiving 34 fewer grants and contracts, the value of the grants received allowed for an overall increase in the research budget. At least 95 percent of the grants and contracts were from sources outside of the state, ac-

inside

cording to John E. Hall, associate vice chancellor of research at UMMC. “Once that money comes from outside of the state, it gets multiplied in the economy of the state,” Hall said. “Current evidence suggests that for every dollar of state funds that is put into research, we get about $5-$6 back through our extra mural funding that comes from outside the state.” Of the $85 million, about $76.5 million comes from federal institutions, about $8.9 million comes from the state foundations, about $4 million comes from industry, about See UMMC, PAGE 4

Mr. Magazine says it’s time to ‘ACT’ P. 4

GRAPHIC BY PETRE THOMAS | The Daily Mississippian

Oxford and university work hard to make roads safer P. 6

Mackey settling in as the starting quarterback P. 12


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