Inecia Looby says she hopes she and her friends can inspire newcomers to the Mayor’s Youth Council to fall in love with the program.
Looby, a junior at Starkville High School, is starting her second year with the local government and community service oriented initiative.
“I’m hoping this year that for the first-year students we can inspire them to come back to the program,” she said. “I want to give them the sense that they can make more of a difference than they feel they can.”
More than 50 Starkville area high school students are participating in this year’s Mayor’s Youth Council. They were inducted into the program on Sunday. The Mayor’s Youth Council is a program that exposes 10th- through 12th-graders to local government and community service.
Looby said she’s always been interested in extracurricular activities and joined the youth council because it intrigued her.
“I learned a lot that I probably would not have by being in the program,” she said. “I did a lot of community service. It helps students who don’t do much to have a chance to do something and be involved with the community.
“I’d never really thought about government,” Looby later added. “I’ve never really seen how the Starkville government works. It’s nice to get a feel for it.”
Program background
Markeeta Outlaw, a coordinator for the program, said Starkville’s mayor’s youth council started in 2009 as a way to get students involved and to give them a louder voice in the community.
“We realized the youth in the area were being under-utilized,” she said. “We didn’t tap into what they have to offer in our community. It was born with that in mind, to give them a platform and get fresh ideas from them as to how they see the city and what they would like to see happen in the city.”
This year’s youth council, according to Mayor Lynn Spruill, is made up of 51 students from Starkville High School, Starkville Academy, Golden Triangle Early College High School and Starkville Christian School.
Students who participate in the program must attend and speak in at least two local government meetings, Outlaw said. The students determine what community service projects they want to tackle for the council year, which coincides with the school year, and how to make them happen.
“They do the whole thing,” Outlaw said. “The only thing as coordinators that we do is oversee and make sure they’re doing everything properly or the correct way.”
Looby said the council held a clothing drive, a pancake breakfast at Applebee’s and a charity run last year.
Building tomorrow’s leaders
Spruill said it’s important to expose youth to local government — especially those who have already shown an interest by applying to be a part of the youth council.
“I think that’s a remarkable thing,” she said. “It gives me great hope that we’re going to have some engaged youth in the public arena, and that’s very important. Getting people out to vote and to understand the issues, and learning the facts in order to make good decisions for the community, is extremely important. I’m really heartened that these kids are interested in doing that and they have the support of their parents and mentors and their peers.”
Former mayor Parker Wiseman, who oversaw the growth of the program from its inception, said it’s something that’s valuable as a way for the city to invest in leadership for the future. He said he wished the program had been around when he was in high school.
“One of the most difficult things for a young leader that wants to be more involved in the community to do is to figure out how to be involved,” he said. “This program is designed to do that and also hopefully to whet the appetites of the next generation of mayors, aldermen and department heads that are going to take the city to new heights down the road.”
Alex Holloway was formerly a reporter with The Dispatch.
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