By her own admission, Mayah Emerson did not come to Mississippi State University looking for a place in the Student Association, much less to be its president.
However, she knew she wanted to be here.
“Mississippi State is the only university that I finished my application to,” Emerson said.
Close enough to her home in Meridian, for comfort, yet far enough away enough for independence, Starkville was a perfect fit. Being the first in her family to go to college, the experience was going to be new, no matter the place.
“I had visited campus (MSU’s) a couple times for a theater competition I came to and for different things like that, and I just fell in love, absolutely loved it, and decided where I wanted to go,” Emerson said. “It was close enough to home, far away enough from home. Neither of my parents or anything went to university, so it has been an experience for all of us.”
As for how she was during those times before MSU, Emerson’s family friend Daniel Towner describes her succinctly: she is the same as she is now, driven.
“I just think she always wants to do a good job, which caused her to be a leader,” Towner said. “She went with it. She’s got it, but it was more so about the people and being fair, and just those qualities of a leader. I don’t think she was ever looking to be a leader. I think she’s just a hard worker, and now, she is a leader.”
Both Towner and current SA President Tyler McMurray attest to Emerson’s ability to bring people together, and McMurray claimed the number of times Emerson’s level head has put out fires is innumerable.
McMurray has worked with Emerson since she joined the SA Senate as a second-semester freshman, and Emerson has only worked up from there.
With positions as a senator, the deputy chief of staff and the director of programming, Emerson has run the gamut of SA positions, and in every one, McMurray praises Emerson’s ability to combine perspectives and achieve the best possible outcome.
Working as deputy chief of staff, Emerson proved to McMurray she could handle the balance of ideas between Executive Council and Senate.
“For me, it was ‘Okay, well, this is what we want. This is what we’re gonna go for, and we’re gonna sacrifice this.’ I think Mayah is so good at understanding a whole bunch of different sides that she’s going to find a way to get both and make both work for whoever,” McMurray said.
McMurray also drew attention to Emerson’s capability to give meaningful, honest advice, but not at the expense of her kind manner.
“If you talk to anybody that works with her, she’s just someone who encourages, helps you, enables you to be able to do your job better, all while being a friend,” McMurray said.
The perfect representation of both Emerson’s work with SA and her humble nature is her achievement of winning the 2017 SEC Leader of the Year Award, while completely unaware of her nomination. 
The SEC holds a conference to award the student leadership among its 14 schools, and the topic is always a hushed one in Executive Council. Seeing as someone must be nominated to win the award, the Executive Council must nominate one of its own, which McMurray said is always an awkward process.
After reading on the requirements for the Student Leader of the Year Award, McMurray decided to submit Emerson as a candidate, unbeknownst to Emerson.
“I started compiling the application, but it started asking for letters of recommendation. I sent out a mass e-mail just asking people if they’d be willing to write a letter of recommendation to Mayah (Emerson), and I put like a disclaimer that this is on the down low,” McMurray said. “I sent out this e-mail thinking that one or two people would respond for a letter of recommendation for her, and I had 11 to 13 people send letters on Mayah’s behalf.”
Jump forward to the conference, and the MSU SA Executive Council was sitting in the conference listening to the winner’s exploits being read aloud before the award was presented. Even then, as her own accomplishments were listed, Emerson assumed it was some other incredible leader.
As for Emerson herself, she said she has never tried to be anything more than she already is.
“I think throughout this campaign, since I’ve been here, hopefully, I’ve been nothing but Mayah, nothing but myself,” Emerson said. “I simply marketed what I stand for, what I believe in, who I am, and gave the student body a choice, and they chose me. I’m so thankful for that, so I think that’s just it. People just want to see you, and that’s what I gave them.”
Looking forward to the future, Emerson wants to make the presidential office an approachable one, and more than that, she wants her victory to inspire those who feel they are restricted by inhibitions.
“I’m most excited about the student who sees Mayah Emerson as SA President and says, ‘Oh wow, she did that. I can do this.’ It may not be run for president,” Emerson said. “Whatever it is, I’m most excited about students being able to see me and saying, ‘If she can do it, I can too.’ Those are the things that really matter.”