Another beautiful day on the Brockport College campus!
Our morning started with a flag posting ceremony and a song by the Clinton County citizens.
We then had a presentation by the Department Americanism Chairman talking about Blue Star banners which were given to citizens who have family members actively serving in the military. It’s an American tradition to display a Blue Star Service Banner in the window of a home when a loved one is proudly serving in the U.S. Armed Forces. The banner is a white banner with one or more blue stars sewn into a red banner. Depending on how many children are currently serving would determine how many stars are sewn on the banner. We had presented 20 one-star banners and 1 two-star banner to our citizens.
The County Executive announced her appointments this morning and the Nationalist and Federalist Party presented their platforms. There was then a warm round of applause and shouts of excitement as the State Officer candidates were presented from both Parties.
The Committees came back together and finalized their Bills which will be reviewed tonight by the State Comptroller of each Party. Each Committee was then given a Case Study to begin writing their Resolutions.
After another working lunch, Committees then went back to their Counties where the County Judge presided over her court with the County DA representing the County. Any citizen that was issued a citation during the last couple days went to court and either represented herself or asked a fellow citizen to represent her as her lawyer.
After Court, the Citizens prepped in their party color of either Blue or Yellow for a parade around campus followed by a very loud and spirited rally between the two parties in the campus ballroom. The citizens put on skits to show their Party spirit and ended with an even louder rally between the two parties! If you could have only heard ~ 360 girls chanting their party cheers!! LOUD, BUT AWESOME!!
They all then quieted down for a Town Hall meeting with the Candidates, moderated by the Political Instructor and Parliamentarian. The Candidates then had a debate against each other for the State offices and answered questions that were received from the Counties for the Candidates.
Following the debate, instructions were given on how to vote using a voting machine. Citizens then registered and citizens then used the voting machine to vote for their State Officers.
After dinner, O’Connor County citizens sang “The Grand Old Flag” and the color guard retrieved the flag. ALA Department President, Jan, who had just returned from presenting at Boys State at SUNY Morrisville reported about her meeting with the citizens and told us about what they did at Boys State!
O’Connor County performed the flag retrieval ceremony with pride! The citizens then listened to the poppy story, two poems and “In Flanders Field.” They learned that our veterans make the poppies that are distributed around Memorial Day and are paid $0.10 per poppy. The funds that are raised from the distribution of the poppies can only be used for Veterans and/or their families. The citizens were then given all the pieces of a poppy and instructions on how to make their own poppy. This wasn’t as easy as you would think . . . but they had fun trying!
The State Official Candidates were once again announced and the citizens then broke out into their political parties to begin the Girls Nation voting. Two citizens per county were eligible to be nominated in each party caucus for Girls Nation. The nominated citizens were escorted out of the room and one by one came back in to give a one-minute speech. After all nominees were finished, ballots were distributed for each county and votes were announced, counted and the top 5 vote getters were announced. These citizens will then prepare a 2-minute speech to be given in front of the entire Girls State body on Friday morning!
Meetings were adjourned and the citizens went back to their dorms for fun, speech preparation and birthday celebrations!
