Students Make Their Voices Count
Cameron High earns Gold Award for voter registration
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CAMERON -- As West Virginia Secretary of State Kris Warner looked out at the audience of Cameron High School students Thursday morning, he saw hippies, disco dynamos and ’80s rockers. It’s homecoming week at Cameron, and Thursday was “Decades Day,” when students dressed in costumes from different decades. Warner said he was pretty impressed by the ensembles.
It’s not the only thing that impressed Warner about Cameron High students that day.
Warner was at the school to give students and staff a Jennings Randolph Gold Award for their work in registering eligible students to vote. The Gold Award signifies that 100% of the senior class registered to vote this past year.
And then Cameron got to work trying to win the award for next year, holding a voter registration drive at the end of the assembly.
“This is honestly the best part of the job,” said Warner, who was joined by West Virginia state Sens. Ryan Weld, R-Brooke, and Laura Wakim Chapman, R-Ohio, and Del. Charles Sheedy, R-Marshall. “It doesn’t matter where I am, I would tell you that what we’re doing here today with the county clerk’s office to register 100% of the high school’s seniors, this is the best part of the job. It says a lot about who we are as West Virginians, who we are in Marshall County, not just being residents, but being citizens.”
Warner told the students the difference between being a resident of the United States and a citizen of the United States is being a registered voter. The award is named for the late U.S. Sen. Jennings Randolph, a Harrison County native who spent 29 years working to lower the country’s voting age from 21 to 18. The 26th Amendment ultimately was ratified in 1971.
Warner told the students voting was the great equalizer for American citizens, with each person getting one vote regardless of status.
“Elon Musk, a citizen of the United States, the wealthiest individual in the world, when he shows up to the ballot box, he gets one vote,” Warner said. “When your parents and grandparents show up at the ballot box, they get one vote.”
Jake Zirkle, a history and civics teacher at Cameron High, said it has been the mission of Cameron staff and faculty to make sure students understand what they can do to affect their communities.
“We really try to emphasize voting and your civic duty,” he said. “If you want to see change, you need to be that change. We’re really, really proud of them for stepping up and registering.”
Warner said he hoped that, now that the seniors are registered, they’ll take advantage of that opportunity in November.
“I tell students that, if you don’t like the speed limit on the state road outside your school, you can vote for somebody who will represent you and change that,” he said. “The best way to oversee state government is through elections.”