Capital Project- Alex And Alyssa

For our newsblog, we did over what I, Alex Schmidt, did at our Capital. The thing that I went to was known as the Capital project. This project has been known and been ran for 8 years. The former first lady of Iowa, Mrs. Vilsack. The main reason why they started this was because they noticed that young people are not getting involved into politics. They think this because kids didn't know what politics are about, so they wanted teenagers to get to experience and get to know exactly what happens in the Capital. This experience that I had was amazing. To get into this project I had to write two papers about me and my interests. I got really lucky because only 20 kids out of the whole state of Iowa got chosen for this opportunity and I was able to be apart of it. I had to miss three days of school on the dates of April 1-4. When I got there we all got set down in a room for supper and just got our schedule of what we were going to be doing on this whole trip. The second day we got split into groups and had to do a bill drafting, like I was a real legislature. After we worked on them, we got to tour the Capital. This place is the most beautiful building I have ever seen. People say that our Capital is one of the most beautiful ones out of all 50 states. I even got to go into the House of Representative and the House of the Senate while they were trying to pass bills. It was the coolest experience that I have ever been through. On the third day of my trip we went back to the Capital and worked on the bills one last time before presenting them to the Governor to get them passed. After our bill drafting session we got to eat with our district legislatures, but mine was in a meeting to I got to have lunch with the Secretary Michael Mauro and Senator Dearden. These two guys were amazing. They were so laid back and down to earth and just were really great people to have lunch with. I was so glad i had lunch with them, I wouldn't of had in any other way. After lunch we toured again and then supper came around and we got to eat with Secretary Michael Mauro. He knew me right away and sat by me, I am SO lucky. After supper we finally had the bill drafting debate.It was amazing! People got so into it and I had a card with my name on it. I was known as Senator Schmidt, has a nice ring to it. The debate got settled and we decided that we wanted to pass two of the bills and we think that those bills would be good enough to get passed by the our Governor Chet Culver. We were all praying that it would. Finally the last day came around and we had to present the bills to the big dog himself, Chester Culver. I got to sit in his chair he always sits in! I was so happy that I got to. After our whole meeting with him, we got both of the bills passed. We were the only Capital Project group ever in history to get two of the bills passed. We were all so happy that we had that happen. At last it was time to say good bye to everyone. I was so sad because i made so many great friends from there and I just had an amazing time. I didn't want it to end. All in all this trip helped me a lot. At first, I thought I would never be interested in politics but this trip changed my mind big. As of right now I really want to work as a page in the Iowa Capital. This program is the best and I think everyone should be in it. The reason is because you get to see first hand of how everything is worked and you get to experience what its like to work there. It was the greatest thing in my life and I will never forget it. I am just so thankful that I got chosen for the Capital Project of 2008.

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