Sophomore Ryder Becker spent a weekend at Harvard University for the Harvard Model Congress. He is the first student from Limestone to attend this conference. Becker has now started a political club at Limestone, Political Intrest Group. This is available for all grade levels to join. The club is led by teacher Ryan Cinnote.

Becker wishes to pursue a career as a politician in the future. After research, he found out about the YMCA Youth and Government Program which furthered his research to the Harvard Model Congress.

In order to go on this trip, he had to get permission from principal, Charlie Zimmerman along with other staff. Becker was the only student there that had no other students from his school with him.

Becker decided to start the Political Intrest Group because he feels many students at Limestone are passionate about politics just like him. He sees many students talking about it with peers but none really acting on it, the club would be an outlet for students to do that. Becker explains that students are often looked at as children which he hopes to change with the Political Intrest Group.  “Student voices aren’t looked at as important we are looked at as kids who just retort what our parents taught us, and I just don’t think that is true,” Becker explains.

Becker hopes for his political club to be an outlet for students to safely discuss and civilly debate different views on topics without it falling into an argument. He explains that although he feels it is a long shot he would like to possibly have state senators or representatives come and talk. Furthermore, he also hopes the club will be involved in county board meetings, school board meetings and be engaged with the community.

Becker’s trip to Harvard entailed a lot of work with barely any downtime often was beginning work at 8:30 am and would be there until 11 pm.  He attended committee and full house sessions. He also drafted legislation and enjoyed working with people that were interested just like him.