CEDAR CITY — Five delegates from the three Utah Catholic high schools attended Girls’ State at Southern Utah University in Cedar City June 10-15.
The week-long American Legion Auxiliary event, for girls who have completed their junior year, is intended to teach responsible citizenship and a love for country. Girls learn parliamentary procedure, become informed citizens, meet government officials and further develop their leadership skills.
Participants create a fictional state in which they run for office, elect public officials, create and enforce laws, and participate in all phases of running and working a government modeled on their own local, county and state governments.
The Catholic Woman’s League offered scholarships to Victoria Landa-Steinau and Fiona Boomer from Judge Memorial Catholic High School, and Maiah Bengoechea and Madalene Caldwell from Juan Diego Catholic High School, to participate in the program.
Alicia Kondrick from Saint Joseph Catholic High School attended on her own.
The girls are often surprised at the outcome of the event.
Landa-Steinau said she thought the program would be more about discussing points of views on certain topics. She was elected as the city attorney, a state delegate and a county delegate.
"I learned so much because I didn’t know what a caucus was or that delegates were the only ones who could elect officials, and I also learned the etiquette of running a meeting," she said. "I also was on a platform committee for a Federalist party and we advocated women’s equality. We talked about women being paid lower wages in the workforce, women’s education to try to get more scholarships for women in engineering and the medical fields and women in the armed forces, where new positions were recently opened."
Prior to Landa-Steinau’s experience at Girls’ State she wanted to be a lawyer, but she is now thinking about politics.
"My ultimate goal is to have a family, have a job that I’m happy with and to somehow change the world, even if it is just a little bit," she said.
At Girls’ State, Boomer learned how Senate and House of Representative meetings are conducted, "which explains to me why passing bills and other government processes take so long," she said. "I was kind of disappointed that we didn’t talk more about current political issues because I wanted to hear other girls’ views and express my own because I hadn’t been in that kind of environment before; I’ve gone to Catholic school my whole life and there were girls of different faith backgrounds there."
In running for office, Boomer learned about conducting a speech based on a platform and about public speaking, she said.
The flag retirement ceremony "was really moving because you know they are retired for the people who fought for our country," Boomer said. "We learned that freedom isn’t free; somebody has to pay the price and they need our support."
The girls commented that they were impressed with a talk given by a lieutenant in the National Guard. For Bengoechea, "The lieutenant was empowering and spoke to us about us being able to do what we want to do even though we are ladies; we can pursue what guys do," she said.
Bengoechea was elected city secretary and state delegate and said she made many friends.
"I really liked the dorm life and borrowing each other’s shoes and hair stuff and I thought ‘This is awesome,’" she said. "I also feel like I can now be a more informed voter."
Kondrick was also amazed at the friendships she created in a short time, she said. "I also had no idea how many people it took to protect our community and state. I was elected county sheriff and took part in the commissioner’s meeting and had to ensure protection for the community and chose to ask for new police motorcycles because they can maneuver through traffic easier to cut down on crime."
Kondrick also enjoyed hearing former Gov. Jon Huntsman speak "about his life and how he got started in politics," she said. "It was cool to see that he started from rock bottom and climbed his way up the ladder, made connections and eventually became governor."
Madalene Caldwell was unavailable for an interview for this article.
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