Mr. Kavanagh goes to Washington

BHS senior first Brookings student to go to Boys Nation in 18 years

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BROOKINGS – For the first time in 18 years, a Brookings teen has gone on to represent South Dakota at Boys Nation. The event is essentially a weeklong hands-on civics course where 98 boys get the chance to act out the part of senators, writing and debating legislation, among other tasks.

Seventeen-year-old Oscar Kavanagh, who will be a senior at Brookings High School this fall, is the first Brookings student to make it to Boys Nation since Paul Tschetter in 1999.

Each state can send only two students on to Boys Nation, and Kavanagh was selected from a pool of about 20 other boys at Boys State, attended by about 305 boys in late May. The reason there are only 98 delegates, who take on the role and title of senators, sent to Boys Nation is because Hawaii does not participate.

The American Legion covers the expense of the trip.

They spend a week at Washington, D.C., with a lot of work to be done during their stay as they campaign for other offices and write and debate legislation. It was held July 21-28.

Lessons in government

The goal of Boys Nation is to teach boys in a hands-on approach how the U.S. Senate and the federal government functions, and that was certainly the main draw for Kavanagh. He added that it’s also a great chance to network with others.

“They really knocked home at Boys Nation that it's kind of like a brotherhood, and once you're in it, it's kind of like an alumni-ship where you can help each other out,” he said.

Participants are randomly put into one of two fictional political parties, the Federalists and the Nationalists, and they cobble together their parties’ platforms themselves and nominate members of their party to run for other elected offices. Kavanagh was a member of the Federalist Party.

Campaigning dominates the first three days or so, with the roles of president, vice president and president pro tempore as the top three positions.

Kavanagh ran for president pro tempore of the U.S. Senate, the highest position for which he could campaign.

“I couldn’t run for president or vice president even if I wanted to because I wasn’t born here. I was born in Dublin, Ireland; my entire family is Irish,” he said.

It was a tight race for president pro tempore, though, even if he didn’t get the job.

Being funny, sophisticated and incorporating your personality into everything you do are all good ways to get far in a campaign, Kavanagh found, as is exhibiting honesty and a sense of genuineness.

But, “being genuine was really hard to exhibit at Boys Nation because the first three days, you're running for stuff, so there's an incentive to be nice and people don't take incentives to be genuine.”

But once campaign season is over, there’s more time to actually get to know others and bond, as well as focus more on legislation and getting to see some of D.C.

Writing bills

Everybody wrote his own bill to be submitted, and Kavanagh wrote his on energy, a topic he’s passionate about. He named it the Energy Freedoms Act, “which is what I wrote to essentially help people get tax rebates off new energies that are being explored or also to subsidize certain energies so you can compete with other ones that are already subsidized,” he said.

The bill wasn’t ever brought to a vote because it was too high on the docket and they never got to it in time.

Even then, he was able to get some discussion going on the topic: “I merged it with some other bills so I could at least get some of my passions debated on the floor, which was cool.”

Days started off with a three-hour work session consisting of listening to bills, breaking into committees and going back to the bills and talking about them on the floor.

Afterward, they would move onto lighter tasks, some days going out to see the sights in the nation’s capital, such as Arlington National Cemetery and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

Then it’d be back to business at the senate or in their respective teams, of which there were four: Washington, Adams, Jefferson and Madison.

Making memories

There were plenty of memories made during his time at Boys Nation. His top experience was meeting President Donald Trump at the Rose Garden, which Kavanagh described as tiny, only as big as a typical backyard, but packed with journalists and their equipment.

Before he spoke at the podium, Trump came to greet them.

“He’s kind of an iconic figure, with his hair, his red tie, his black cufflinks, his navy to black suits. So when you saw all of that together with your own eyes, it was like seeing an animatronic. It was something you couldn’t really believe at first,” he said.

It’s still a little unreal to him, but the president did introduce himself, shook their hands and took pictures with them. Regardless of anyone’s politics, getting to meet the president was an incredible opportunity, he said.

The next big experience was when the boys got to go meet their congressmen. Not everyone could meet all of their representatives – those from Vermont, for instance didn’t get to meet Sen. Bernie Sanders, who was caught up in other business – but Kavanagh and the other Boys Nation delegate and the two Girls Nation delegates did visit with Sens. John Thune and Mike Rounds and Rep. Kristi Noem.

“We found with all of the representatives that they were all welcoming and warm,” he said, but he did enjoy talking with Thune the most, given his greater experience at D.C. and engaging personality.

Then there was the farewell to two of the adult leaders of Boys Nation, who were retiring.

“I will add one more thing, though. That Thursday night, we actually had a speaker who was a Holocaust survivor. It was one of the greatest speeches I’ve ever witnessed in my life. Not only myself, but all Boys Nation senators were just crying at the end of that speech,” he said.

She had told them of her experiences as a young teenage girl sent to a concentration camp, where she’d do anything to make herself look stronger – and therefore, worth keeping alive – by such tricks as padding her clothes with papers to make herself look bigger and putting platforms under her shoes so she’d look taller. Her father had been sent to Auschwitz, where he died.

“All she called for was to be kind to one another and you can never say I love you enough to somebody,” he said.

Lessons learned

Among the lessons learned that week was the important role listening plays in getting things done, moving beyond the urge to talk for the sake of talking.

“Listening is a lot more important than talking because as the saying goes, you don’t learn anything from talking. You learn a lot more from hearing what other people have to say,” he said.

To those who are fortunate enough to be able to attend Boys State, Kavanagh had this advice for any of them that would like the opportunity to continue on to Boys Nation: “To be a Boys Nation delegate, I’d say you have to have an underlying respect for what it means to be an American citizen. And secondly, you already have to have a handle on what the civics are, how to use that to make a change and be passionate.

“Linking your passions, understanding the value of being an American citizen, and understanding your civic duty are the three most important things to being a future Boys Nation delegate.”

Contact Eric Sandbulte at esandbulte@brookingsregister.com.