10 HS seniors selected as pages
Students will serve for two weeks helping out during 2023 legislative session
Ten Anne Arundel high school seniors will serve as Maryland General Assembly pages for the 2023 legislative session.
After a rigorous selection process, including writing three essays and interviewing with a panel, the students selected as pages will serve for two weeks running errands, distributing materials to members on the floor, assisting visitors and delivering messages during the 90-day legislative period that begins Jan. 11.
Anne Arundel pages include four Severna Park High School students: Amelia Farrar, Aidan Judge, Zach McGrath and Kayla Patel. Three students are from Archbishop Spalding High School: Ava Krasauskis, Julia Stanley and Marc Urbanas. Other pages are Crofton High School senior Alex Hossainkhail, Meade High School senior Beckett Hummer and Old Mill Senior High School senior Jayden Shiflett.
After two years of the program, which began in 1970, being held virtually because of the pandemic, it’s now back in person. Anne Arundel state Sen. Bryan Simonaire, who sponsored a bill to create a similar page program for the election process, said he’s happy to have the legislative pages back in the building.
“They bring a youthful passion and energy to the senate,” Simonaire said in an email.
The seniors said they are excited to see the General Assembly process from the inside with the other 95 pages from across the state representing their respective counties, including six from Harford County.
Some pages, like Stanley, 18, McGrath, 17, and Hummer, 17, said they hope this is the start of long political careers. Stanley said she hopes to spend the next four years at the Naval Academy and then be elected to Congress to advocate for increasing liter
acy rates and reducing microplastics in the ocean. McGrath wishes to become a congressional staffer and then a public defender. Hummer intends to study political science at Georgetown University and eventually lobby for issues like abortion rights and voter accessibility.
“[Politics] is such an interesting field and something that impacts us and I just wanted to be a part of it,” Stanley said.
Stanley, McGrath and Hummer said state politics has the potential to affect the lives of Marylanders more deeply than the federal government can at times.
McGrath and Hummer are well aware of the impact local government can have. McGrath serves as the student member on the Anne Arundel County Board of Education while Hummer’s mother is County Council member and former school board member Julie Hummer. They’re excited about the chance to get a peek into state government and make connections with politically minded seniors from across the state.
For Hummer, it’s an opportunity she’s been looking forward to since starting high school.
“We’re there for coffee. We’re there for paper runs, but we still get the chance to be in the building where historic legislation is being made and to make so many connections with other powerful people our age that have great goals and they’re from all over Maryland,” Hummer said.
Other students have aspirations outside of politics, like Judge, 17, who said he hopes to become a filmmaker and infuse his work with political themes and create documentaries on political issues.
“Oliver Stone is one of my favorite directors. I like how he incorporates his experiences as a Vietnam veteran and the decisions that led to that into his works,” Judge said. “Politicians seem very distant and abstract and I think dealing with them face to face will be very unique and insightful.”
Judge has already started to mesh politics and film in a screenplay he wrote about former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi that got him admitted to New York University’s film school. Perhaps his time at the General Assembly will inspire his next film.
Shiflett, 17, and Hossainkhail, 17, aren’t sure what the future holds for them, but said they are optimistic the page program will lead them in the right direction.
After being inspired by her mother’s local advocacy work, Shiflett is eager to find her own political alignments.
“I hope this program will allow me to find my own footing. Although I am undecided about my choice of study in college, advocacy has been a big part of my life for so long and is something I feel strongly about,” Shiflett said in an email. “It’s also time for me to find myself and develop my own values.”
For Hossainkhail, the goal is to help develop a path forward and decide which of many interests — including politics, biology, research, computer science or music — to pursue.