Girls State program gives local girl a taste of government work

Published 8:30 am Thursday, August 4, 2016

More than one million people have attended the American Legion Auxiliary’s Girls State, a mock government program, since the event was founded in 1937. This year, Kenzington Dupree, a student from Mount Si High School, represented the Snoqualmie Valley from June 12 to 18 at Evergreen Girls State, held at Central Washington University.

The Girls and Boys State programs were developed by the American Legion Auxiliary, an organization that supports veterans, active military and their families, to help students learn about how the government and the elected officials within it, operate.

On top of her own interest in government, Dupree was inspired to participate by her mother and grandmother, who had both also gone to the program when they were in high school.

Before this year’s Washington Girls State, Dupree prepared for the event by reaching out to the city of Snoqualmie for help. She attended a city council meeting to study the municipal government and met with Snoqualmie Mayor Matt Larson and City Administrator Bob Larson to ask questions about local and state issues.

“I emailed the mayor and asked him for some tips and whatnot. City Administrator Bob Larson had done Boys State and he was really helpful. We set up a 30-minute meeting and talked about city problems and Washington’s problems,” Dupree said. “I also emailed Patty Murray. She was a hard lady to get a hold of. She sent me back a list of things she felt was important in Washington.”

The week-long program was held at Central Washington University in Ellensburg. Students participating in the program were split into Nationalist and Federalist parties and both sides had to campaign for the various state and local offices. Positions from city clerk and municipal judge, all the way up to Secretary of State and Governor were fought for.

After a miscommunication that resulted in Dupree’s disqualification from the campaign for Governor, she decided to campaign for her party’s nomination as a write-in and ended up winning. Dupree said a party nominee hasn’t won by a write-in candidate in more than 20 years.

While she did not win the Governor position, Dupree became a member of the Gold House of Representatives and leader of her party.

Participants spent the first half of the week on elections, and the second half working within their roles to discuss issues that the government would need to address.

“Earlier in the week we all wrote bills and they all came to us to debate. We had bills about gun control… we got to debate some cool topics,” she said. “The ones that took more time were the more serious topics — people do have strong feelings. We did it like the House of Representatives would.”

Her discussions with city staff and Senator Patty Murray helped her during the debates and discussions on the issues their mock government faced, Dupree said. The experience really made an impact on her and she wants to promote it here in the Valley so more students from Mount Si will learn about the programs and be inspired to participate.

“I’m reaching out to get more recognition for the program…. It would be cool if more people at Mount Si knew about it.”