Dedicating 30 years of her life to the Youth and Government program, Sue Six has seen many students succeed in this program. Since the year 2000, she’s been the Program Section Leader for the Senate, supervising the Senate and advising the current officials. She works alongside Robert Burger, the Section Leader for the House. “We prepare them, because we want the Senate and all of our programs to be student led,” she explained. “We’re the chief parliamentarians, so if any other parliamentary questions come up, we answer them. And if we don’t know them, we look them up,” she lightheartedly admitted. Her involvement with the program started back in 1992, when she was working as a government and economics teacher in a small, private school.
Out of the school’s 125 students, 20 of them were already in the club. After three years, the club had a total of 50 students. After five years, there were over 100 students in the club. She claimed that the reason why the club was growing significantly was because students “would come back from the conference and tell other students about it.” In such a small school, word and encouragement (or pressure) from friends was bound to spread and form an even bigger club. I loved it because of what it offered our students in leadership training, and they loved it,” she said. During her time as an advisor, 7 youth governors were elected from her club.“ That was so much fun,” she admitted, “to watch them really push for that, get out of their comfort zone, to give a speech in front of a thousand kids.” She loved seeing her students put effort into their work and succeed.
In 2008, she quit teaching. A year later, however, she was asked to be the District 4 Director. Although she enjoyed seeing students from her district succeed, she also enjoyed seeing students from other districts excel. “I’ve met so many students that weren’t from my school, that weren’t from my district, and they’ve blessed me in so many ways, too,” she confessed. She still keeps in touch with the students that she’s met over the years, seeing their lives unfold and how the program has impacted them. She has relished many aspects of Youth and Government, but most importantly, she loved getting to know every student that she would come across.
Written by: Alanis Rodriguez