Hear stories from some of our most inspirational voices — you!
Pictured: Elizabeth in WFSU's Lobby
Listen: Week of March 28, 2019
Transcript
What inspires you from WFSU public media? Here's this week's Voices That Inspire. My name is Elizabeth Hughes and I'm a senior at Wacala High School. Myself and Jamie Harvey, we got together one day and we said we've got to do something to get high schoolers involved and to realize you know there's a special election coming up and that it's important. So we did that and we're able to get both Jason Schof and Mike Watkins to agree to come. They were the only two candidates who were running at the time. We invited Ryan Terrell, which is the Democrat who has filed and qualified to run, but he wasn't able to make it. Several students came up to me afterwards and said, I'm so happy that you put something on like this. You brought media here, you brought the candidates here. We set it up and it was an actual forum, it was an actual learning experience. I never thought politics could be interesting is what when students said, but I found out I was wrong and it's something that I definitely want to look into and that made my heart happy. It made me just ecstatic. Over 40 students were registered to vote that day. We had 90 in attendance, so all the students probably who were 16 and older registered or pre-registered to vote who were in attendance. And that's really big. The 90 students who came to our event chose to come to the debate forum over a basketball game that was also offered during the same period. So big deal. Hi, schoolers. We have a voice and our opinion matters. We're up and coming. We're not just some 14-year-old who can't vote. She doesn't matter because she can't vote. That girl does have a voice. That boy does have a voice and one day they will be voting and they could vote you out if you don't listen. So I hope they took that away. If you're not involved already with your community, take a risk, jump out, find a community organization that resonates with you, get involved and go from there. I'm Elizabeth Hughes and I'm a senior at O'Cola High School. You're listening to voices that inspire.
Elizabeth Hughes - Get Involved and Go From There
A senior at Wakulla High School, Elizabeth was able to organize a political event at her high school with one of her peers. They set up a forum between local candidates for a special election and to emphasize the importance of the event at their school. Elizabeth believes that high schoolers have a voice and that their opinions do matter, especially where politics are concerned.