Max Johnson knew it was a close race for freshman class president. He did not expect to win.

Johnson started campaigning three weeks before the election.

“I was actually not expecting anything because there were a wide variety of freshman class president candidates. I was just running to do my best, and to put myself out there,” Johnson said. “I wasn’t expecting to win, but I was very happy when I did.”

He also had inspiration from his older sister, Bella Johnson, the senior class president.

“My sister is a big role model for me. I’d like to think that I could follow in her footsteps.”

Johnson’s running mate, Kiki Locke-Harris, won the freshman class vice president spot.

“Kiki knew a lot of people that I wouldn’t have known otherwise, and so I feel we had a good mix of diversified voters. It did end up being advantageous to have her as a running mate,” Johnson added.

He also tried to relate with other students by emphasizing that one of his priorities was not to appear as too serious. He chuckled about posters he put up around the school.

“My main platform was that I liked to have fun.” The posters featured several pictures of Johnson’s face photoshopped onto different celebrities’ faces and characters in movies.

“A lot of people loved the posters. It was more of a humorous selling point than anything.”

When asked about the strength of the other candidates’ platforms and campaign success, Johnson says that he does feel like he deserved to win after hearing other candidates’ arguments.

“I feel like I bring qualities to the table [that others don’t], but one thing that I want to do is bring all those great ideas [together] that everyone did have and to not ignore them. I want to be able to communicate with everybody.”

If this year’s presidency is successful for him, you may see his name on a ballot in the future.

“I would like to run again in later years, if I have the time for the commitment. I would enjoy it,” Johnson said. 

He also does speech and debate as an extracurricular, plays basketball in the winter, and is going to participate in track and field later this year. He plans to try out for constitution team this spring for his sophomore year.

“There are a ton of goals I have for the school about recycling, about improving the situation we are in right now with water– something about making cups more accessible, or access to a higher quality of water,” Johnson said. “But if others have ideas, I’m very open to hearing them. I want to implement what the student body wants for the school, not just what I want.”