At an event hosted at  McDaniel College and Salisbury University, senior Hawks Abigail Brosh and Robert Pekarek had the opportunity to attend Girls’ State and Boys’ State. They got exposure to learning about public policy, creating their own government and agendas and hearing from public speakers over the course of the week.

“Girls’ State is a week of mock government, so you’re selected by an American Legion post. You basically go there [Salisbury University] and you’re split into cities and then you elect mayors and a bunch of government officials and then the cities make up counties and in the counties you also have elections,” explains Brosh. Since being in girls state, she also had to opportunity to learn about the branches of government in the state of Maryland and hearing guest speakers daily.

In order for Brosh to be selected into the program, she had to go to an American Legion post, State Ridge, and was then interviewed in front of a panel of about ten people about herself and why she was interested in attending. “I really wanted to go to this because I really want to go to a service academy and it looks good for them. But I didn’t expect it to open so many opportunities for me, like getting awards and meeting new people.”

With all of the perks came a few challenges for Brosh, primarily being surrounded by strangers and public speaking. Brosh stated, “Sometimes you would have to give a speech in front of 300 girls and that’s kind of scary because you don’t know anyone.” However, she added the public speaking became an afterthought because of all of the benefits presented to her after attending. “It looks really prestigious on college applications, so that’s obviously a perk. You make some lifelong friends, I still talk to the people in my city.”

Similarly, Pekarek attended boys state at McDaniel College before being sent to Boys’ Nation in Washington DC. after winning a debate by two votes. “I was chosen to be one of the two of the 214 boys [from boys state]; there was a televised debate and I was one of the finalists. In the debate there were four of us up on the stage. Then the entire 214 kids from every high school voted and I won the vote by two votes, sending me to Boys’ Nation, which is two boys from every state,” shared Pekarek. The big difference between Boy’s State and Boys’ Nation is that Boys’ State teaches about how the state government works, and Boys’ Nation teaches about how the federal government works.

Boys’ Nation opens up many more opportunities to meet or hear from high up government officials. “Historically every year since 2012, boys nation met President Obama. This year he was at the DNC so we couldn’t get to meet him, which kind of sucked, but I was able to meet Senator Mikulski and senator Cardin.” Pekarek also was able to visit every memorial, including Vietnam, Lincoln and Korea, and got to hear from Holocaust survivor and public speaker, Nesse Godin.

The biggest criteria for boys nation was having to write a bill, which had to pass through the Boys’ nation’s government. Admittedly, to Pekarek’s surprise, his bill passed for the first time in Maryland in six years. “We’ve [boys nation] been writing bills that are too liberal or too conservative, so I did a lot of research and I wrote a bill about abolishing the penny.”

Drafting the bill gave Pekarek struggle because of the strict structure, however the hardest part was pushing the bill through Boys’ Nation’s Senate. “I had to convince two other senators, I had to convince the senator from Colorado and the senator from Arkansas because they basically had the exact same bill as me. So I had to convince them to drop their bills and push their bill more behind my bill. Then I had to rally support from senators all over to speak in support of my bill and I had to give a presentation in front of the Senate… so that was kind of tough.”

Despite the difficulties boys nation endured, Pekarek enjoyed the work and all of the benefits. “I want to attend the United States Naval Academy and on the Naval academy application, it’s one of the things where it asked ‘did you go to Boys’ state’ or ‘did you go to boys nation’ so it really helps with that and I got my nom [nomination] to the Naval academy so that’s good.” Pekarek also found it helpful how much it expanded his network from not only the state, but the entire country. “I know about 100 kids who are in Ivy League schools so when I was touring colleges and stuff I had a kid at every single college who was there and was happy to sit down to lunch with me and talk about the school…you don’t want to only know people from your school, you want to also know people from all over the state, all over the country, all over the world, hopefully.”

Brosh and Pekarek recommend anyone participating in either girls or boys state, especially as a way to build up a college resume or as an interest in government. Pekarek explains, “It’s all paid for by the American legion and you can go in if you’re not this school’s nominee. I’ll give you the email address of the guy who will sponsor you because there are other clubs in Maryland that are willing to sponsor extra people if you have them… there’s no reason not to [attend]. What are you going to do during your summer, watch Netflix?”