Big Sandy's own Wyatt Williams went to Boys State from June 6th-11th to learn more about how our state, county, and city governments work. The American Legion Boys State is a program dedicated to educating high school students in the legislative process, bill writing, and the election system. It presents students with a simulation of various government situations so they can learn well-rounded and realistic lessons. Boys state was first organized by the American Legion in 1935, hoping to foster patriotism, citizenship, and leadership through the week-long program. Wyatt described it as sort of "Like a camp, that goes into deeper detail of how government works."
"The first day, we did the city government & appointed offices for city. They had a voting system if you wanted to run for county or state offices, you would have to sign up. We would have elections for those offices. For county there was county commissioner, county auditor, Sheriff, and other positions," Wyatt explained of the time he spent there. In his own elections, he was appointed to a city council position for Powder River, which is one of several fictional towns represented in the program. He opted to pass on running for a county position in favor of joining a ticket seeking the lieutenant governor position. The program organizes kids into two fictional parties for the week. "There was a Frontier and a Pioneer party. The Frontier had 2 candidates for governor and the Pioneer party had 6 candidates. I was part of the Pioneer party. The guy I was running with, we came in 5th out of 6th... so that's a win in my book."
"The average day, after we established cities and parties, it was just really going to meetings and discussing stuff. It depended on if you were in a city meeting or a county meeting or a party meeting, it decided what kind of thing you were discussing." The various topics of discussion served to help the kids learn how the process of governing takes place, especially the interaction between areas and parties at the different levels of government. "We really just came up with our own topics. They had mock cities, there was Tomahawk, Last Chance, Granite City, and Powder River. I was part of Powder River. We discussed issues, and we goofed off a little. So just for fun, we talked about declaring independence from the other cities and the state."
During one day of their governing process, students got to go to the capital building and see the chambers where the legislators meet and hear the governor speak. "We went to the capital for the day that we were doing house and senate meetings. We did go to the capital, and it was really cool because we got to go into the house chambers and senate chambers. We got to hear from Greg Gianforte there."
Participation in Boys State generally runs in the area of 500 students, though this year the numbers were down to around 200. There is also a Girls State that runs separately. Students interested in attending Boys (or Girls) state in the future should contact a member of the American Legion to see about sponsorship. In addition, schools around the state should receive information about the program from the American
Legion. Wyatt pointed out that several students attended without sponsorship from the Legion. "You can apply and pay to go yourself without a sponsorship. It's only $300, and if you pay to go yourself, you get it back at the end of the week."
Wyatt described the week as a "once in a lifetime experience." In addition, he encouraged any other young people to take advantage of the amazing opportunity provided by the American Legion: "The experience was great. If I could do it again, I would. If anyone gets the opportunity to go, they should."
