Students represent Iron County at Superior Days

Six Iron County students traveled to Madison during the last week in February as part of the delegation from Douglas, Bayfield, Ashland and Iron counties that were in the state capital for the 30th annual Superior Days.

The event, which took place Feb. 24 and Feb. 25, allows representatives from the four northern counties to lobby state legislators and officials on issues they feel are important to the northern region.

Iron County's delegation - made up of three Hurley students and three Mercer students, as well as chaperones - were part of the approximately 50 young people who took part in this year's event.

The students helped lobby for a range of issues, such as increasing broadband Internet access across the region, expanding the area's mental health services, altering funding for the state's 911 system to reflect increasing use of cell phones and the continuing attempt to expand U.S. 2 into four lanes.

The delegation also brought a display promoting Iron County and handed out maps of the trails throughout the county.

After talking to various members of the state legislature and their legislative aides, the group met with representatives from a number of state agencies to discuss the issues in greater detail.

"I definitely found it interesting, I got an idea of how everything worked," said Mercer junior James Reichard, who made his first Superior Days trek this year.

The students were given some training - including a teleconference in December and more in-depth training in early February - on how best to construct their pitch to legislators before traveling to Madison.

"We try to talk to them about how to put together the highlights of what they want to talk about in a short speech," said Neil Klemme, of the University of Wisconsin Iron County Extension office, who helped bring the three Hurley students - senior Dakota Rice, senior Rachel Fedora and sophomore Melissa Simonar - on the trip.

The two-day trip also gave students an opportunity to shadow various legislators and other officials. Mercer High School seniors Luke Huybrecht and John Klopatek - both of whom have participated in three Superior Days - found this especially enlightening.

"I really just like meeting with the legislators, because you know, you think "oh, they are politicians, they are just business, business, business. They don't really care about the citizens.' But they really do actually, once you get to sit down and talk to them," said Klopatek. "They are actually people."

The timing of this year's trip was especially educational for students as it fell during the protests about the then-proposed right-to-work bill.

"It was pretty cool seeing democracy in action," said Huybrecht. "That we have the right to protest and that people are actually doing it, not just whining about it."

In addition to providing a memorable experience of government in action, Klemme felt that the protests may have helped their cause as the legislators seemed so relieved for a break from the right-to-work debate that they listened more to the representatives from the northern counties.

Mercer government teacher Debbie Hohner was proud of all three Mercer representatives and thankful to both the school and county for splitting the costs to send the students.

"The boys did a great job, they represented the community well," Hohner said. "It's one thing to talk about (how government works), but then they get to actually see it."

Klemme also enjoyed the experience and felt it was a valuable experience for students who make the trip.

"I'm trying to do a lot of work in engaging young people ... in getting involved in their county and getting involved in the leadership of their county," Klemme said. "Research shows that by better connecting young people to their community, they are more likely to maybe stay in it or feel like contributing members of their community."

As valuable as Klemme feels the experience was for students, he hopes that there is more participation from the adults in Iron County.

"We need the adults to come down - and it's open to any adults in Iron County," said Klemme. "We want these kids to feel like their community is valuable and we want them to be involved in it ... We need adults to plug in here and come with us, because the kids need to see adults are working on these issues, too. They see adults from other counties down there, and I think it's important that we get some adults from here."