Three Tea Area students learned about politics and government first-hand at Boys and Girls State June 1-6.
Juniors Tanner Herr, Marissa Fischer and Pearl Nielsen attended the weeklong sessions in Aberdeen and Vermillion. The Tea American Legion Auxiliary sponsored the three students.
Participants attend Boys and Girls State between their junior and senior year of high school. At the event, the students are split up into cities. In each city the students elect mock municipal and county officials, state representatives, a governor, lieutenant governor and other state-level officials. Mock bills are passed and mock trials are held. Each operation is similar to the actual South Dakota government operations.
Herr, who was assigned the city of Honolulu, ran for city alderman in his district and a seat in the House of Representatives. He didn’t win either of the seats, but he was able to continue helping the people in his city pass petitions to run for State Treasurer and Circuit Court Judge.
Nielsen was appointed policewoman in her city of Washington, D.C. and Register of Deeds at the county level. She opted to not run for a state position and help run the campaign for a governor candidate.
Running for office was scary, Nielsen said, but she was able to better understand the campaign process and issues candidates must handle at the city and county levels.
Throughout the week students heard from speakers like U.S. Senator John Thune, Representative Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin, Governor Mike Rounds and Public Utilities Commissioner Dusty Johnson.
“Hearing from all the highly elected officials was the highlight of my week,” Herr said.
His excitement escalated once Johnson told the group South Dakota will have AT&T and the iPhone in the near future, he said.
Nielsen enjoyed Herseth-Sandlin’s speech the most. A citizen’s panel asked questions and Nielsen said she responded quickly and in depth.
Fischer enjoyed listening to 1994 Girls State Governor Emily Piper.
“She had more of the moral messages. She gave us information on how to apply what we learned at Girls State later in life,” she said.
Although none of the three have a high interest in running for office, they learned a lot.
“There’s a lot we learned in citizen forum about participating and not having to hold a public office. That’s something I’m really interested in.
That involvement begins with learning.
“My peers and I need to be a lot more involved in what’s going on in the world,” she said. “Listening to Herseth-Sandlin and Rounds, they were talking about things that the news doesn’t really touch on.”
Fischer drew attention towards renewable and alternative energy resources.
“You’d expect that to be brought up in chemistry classes or something, but it doesn’t,” she said.
Herr was surprised by the national deficit.
“Nationally we have about $11 trillion in debt,” Herr said. “But South Dakota has none. It is actually made illegal in our state constitution so we can’t ever fall into a deficit.”
Outside of the sanctioned activities, the students were able to interact and get to know one another better. Herr spent a lot of time playing softball, ultimate Frisbee and basketball.