New servant to the students

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A ten-year-old boy, a pile of sawdust in the front yard and a four-wheeler. The result: two scars on Chris Loumeau’s leg where the four-wheeler melted his skin to the bone.

After polls closed two weeks ago, that ten-year-old boy, now grown up, became the new student body president of this university.

Loumeau, from Coeur d’alene, Idaho, began his scholastic career at BYU-Idaho.

“I came down to Provo for a girl and transferred to BYU,” Loumeau said.

A good friend of Loumeau’s, Dave Smith, who is currently the student regent with the Board of Utah Higher Education and an alum of UVU, frequently told Loumeau what a great school this is and urged him to attend.

“I kept checking it out, and getting more and more impressed,” Loumeau said. “I eventually decided he was right, that I needed to come here. So I transfered from BYU and it’s the best thing I’ve ever done.”

Loumeau said he was impressed with the opportunities here at UVU, the autonomy of the students and he felt that students had a voice here.

“All my family either went to or are going to BYU. I’m the only one who didn’t and when I decided go to UVU, it freaked them out – they thought I was making a mistake,” Loumeau said. “Now they are really happy that I did.”

He started at UVU in the fall of 2009. As soon he enrolled here, he became involved in student government as the senator of the School of Business for the 2009-2010 academic year. During the 2010-2011 academic year, Loumeau has and is currently serving as the Vice President of Academics.

Loumeau is double majoring in business management and community health, with aspirations of getting his masters in health administration and going into hospital administration.

As the second oldest of four kids, Loumeau has seen his share of struggles. For a time, his father was unemployed, which was a difficult challenge for his family. There was a time when Loumeau himself helped his parents out with money.

Out of the four kids in his family, Loumeau is the only one not married, though he was engaged before; however, she called it off two weeks before the wedding.

“That was rough,” Loumeau said. “Luckily, I was on the senate at the time and I had a lot of great friends, who were a great help and very supportive.”

Along with other challenges, Loumeau said he has had to struggle to overcome his pride.

“I’ve been blessed with lots of opportunities in my life and it’s easy to get full of yourself,” Loumeau said. “I think staying grounded has been really hard, but as long as people are open and honest with me and I can take criticism, I can stay grounded.”

Over the next year, Loumeau hopes to do just that: stay grounded as student body president.

“I want us to be known for being very real with students, very open with students and that we want to serve them,” Loumeau said. “We are not here to glorify ourselves, we’re not here to put a feather in our caps or pad our resumes, it’s really because we love the school and we really want it to shine and to work with students.”