About

I grew up beyond rural in a small town of less than 500 people. Most people owned at least five different kinds of animals. Some of them were friends, but most were food. Gravel was just as common as blacktop, and there was usually at least one truck per family. In the summer, baseball and the Current River were king.

Dreams were small, and for the most part that is what people wanted. I remember feeling different. I dreamed about being the president of the United States.

When I was in fourth grade, Al Gore and George Bush (the younger one) were each vying to become the commander-in-chief. Every aspect of something so public was intriguing to me, particularly how two people were able to each get 50 percent of the nation to believe in them. My family seemed to support Gore, but I was drawn to Bush. He seemed real to me and I felt like he genuinely cared.

My school was staging an election to teach us about the Electoral College, campaigns, and voting. They had several students nominated by each class throughout the grades to run for president. The first obstacle was getting the class to choose you.

After I got my class to choose me as their presidential candidate, I was able to move on to persuading the entire student body. Each of those who made it through their class primary were set to travel from grade to grade, class to class, and perform a speech that would seal the deal as the next US president. On the day of the actual countrywide election, our student body would conduct their own election. The winner did not really win anything, as it was a learning experience more than anything else. For me, it was a moment to transpose what I had been so intrigued by on TV.

In a landslide, I was elected the president of the United States. I was ecstatic with the results and could not believe it had been so overwhelming in my favor. After all, it took a very long time to really know who won between Gore and Bush. Inside of a cardboard ballot box constructed by a teacher, I was given all of the votes that had been cast. Several times over the next few years I would sit in my closet, where I stored this big box, and perform recounts of my own. Each time I allowed my confidence in my strategy to spur me on to develop even more.

Some months later, it was career day and we got to dress up as our future occupation. Since I was just voted president, it made sense to dress up as that. I had been taking the Missouri and US flags on and off the school flagpole every day and learned how to properly fold them. I even formed a team to help and started to delegate responsibilities pertaining to the flags.