A kid can learn a lot about civic involvement from a week in Pierre.
That’s what Judy Stadem learned last year when her daughter Rachel signed on for the first South Dakota legislative learning session of TeenPact, a Christian organization whose name stands for “teaching teens they can have an impact” on the government process.
This year’s TeenPact week took place in late February, and Rachel was there.
The 15-year-old became a student legislator quickly last year, despite a minimal understanding of the legislative process going in.
“I was very, very impressed with how fun and interesting they made the whole legislative process,” Judy Stadem said. “It didn’t take long for (Rachel) to jump in there and be proposing amendments and voting on them.”
TeenPact began in 1994 in Georgia. The group organizes week-long legislative learning sessions for students in 38 states. Students hear speeches from state policy leaders, observe debate in the legislature, learn government terminology and spend a day writing, debating and passing legislation of their own in a mock session.
Stadems learned about the opportunity from a family friend in Parker whose daughter had attended a TeenPact event in Iowa in 2007. That friend, Lisa Nehring, took it upon herself to organize a week of learning for South Dakota in 2008.
Almost all of the 15 students at the first TeenPact event returned for 2009. There were 41 students in attendance this year.
“Most of them came back,” Rachel Stadem said. “Three of them moved away to Wisconsin, so they weren’t there, but everybody else came back.”
Lieutenant Governor Dennis Daugaard, Rep. Ed Iron Cloud, Public Utilities Commissioner Dusty Johnson and Secretary of State Chris Nelson were among the speakers Stadem and the others heard from that week.
TeenPact founder Tim Echols also spoke to the students. Echols, who lives in Georgia, generally does not attend the legislative weeks organized by TeenPact, but said he connected with a lot of people in South Dakota during a past visit to the state.
The group’s goal is to help bolster the conservative political base all around the country. To expand that base in South Dakota, Echols said TeenPact will offer two full scholarships for Native American students to attend the conference next year.
Such diversity will help teach students from different backgrounds how to work together.
“We’re really making an effort next year to get more Native Americans involved in our program,” Echols said. “If all the kids look the same and have the same socio-economic background, there’s a lot they might not get the chance to learn about.”
The character of the state’s people stood out for Echols during his visit - he met several individuals who earned their success through hard work.
“I was really stunned by the old-fashioned work ethic I saw – even at the barber shop,” Echols said. “That protestant work ethic still seems to be in place there.”
The young Tea resident Echols addressed in Pierre said she hopes to put her own work ethic to good use after two years of TeenPact training.
“I’m definitely going to try a lot more to help out with campaigning,” Rachel Stadem said.
She’s already learned that legislative work isn’t easy. On the last day of TeenPact, each student proposed a bill during a mock session. Stadem’s bill would have banned cell phones while driving.
That bill failed, as did a similar bill proposed by the real legislators in Pierre this year.
A bill to ban billboards in South Dakota did pass in the student body, to the elation of the parents observing the session.
“That got a round of applause from the parents in the room,” Judy Stadem said.