My Boys State memories
Journalism lesson learned the hard way during mock government exercise in Arizona
If I had been asked to write a “how I spent my summer vacation” essay in 1977, it would have been a story about a small-town boy, thrown into a city of powerhungry strangers, who got caught in a nasty political vortex, was legally harassed and almost wound up in jail.
I was only 17.
What happened to me that summer of ’77 might have been concerning if it wasn’t also thrilling, insightful and, in many ways, comical.
That was the summer I attended Boys State Arizona, a program sponsored by the American Legion and organized as an immersive, intensely participatory experience in how government works. One of five boys from Casa Grande Union High School (Casa Grande, Ariz., is a farming town halfway between Phoenix and Tucson), I had no idea what to expect from this exercise in mock government. I knew only that I had to do well: Boys State was a big deal for overachieving juniors headed into their senior year.
On the yellow school bus headed up to Flagstaff, Ariz., where our weeklong event was set on the campus of Northern Arizona University, I wondered how best to assert myself in the Boys State mechanism. We were expected to vigorously participate in this civics lesson where we formed city, county and state governments that required mayors, state House and Senate seats, even a judicial system, as we worked our way to electing a governor. Split into two parties — Federalist and Nationalists — once we arrived, we had to dive into the multifaceted scenario of what it means to be an active, politically minded American citizen.
Running for offices and giving speeches was key to wooing this teenage electorate of hormones and hubris. And I was good at that. After all, I was elected to student government in my high school, and I was a speech-team champ in debate, oratory and extemporaneous speaking. I had the chops to ascend to the highest tiers of Boys State.
But within hours of arriving, I was singled out as a newspaperman. Boys State advisers knew I worked for both my high school newspaper and yearbook, so I was tapped to be on the staff of the Boys State Record, the daily newspaper covering the machinations of our make-believe state. By the end of the day, I was named editorin-chief.
And then the fun began. Our newspaper was organized much like a real newsgathering operation — reporters, editors and even an advertising staff that solicited political ads that were paid for using Boys State money. Yes, we even had fake money.
The Record covered all aspects of the evolving political process leading up to the grand convention to elect the highest office, governor. And, like a real newsroom, our hours were long. I don’t recall attending any of the mandatory meetings for establishing local government or any of my party’s caucuses. In what was to become a practice that became my entire adult working life, I was glued to a newsroom day and night, oblivious to a “real” world that wasn’t directly tied to putting out a daily newspaper.
That real world crashed into my newsroom one day when I was served with a lawsuit. An ad that misrepresented the political platform of one of the parties made its way into the paper. We later discerned it was paid for by a rogue group seeking to discredit that party.
The ad, which obviously wasn’t vetted by the crackerjack advertising department, was a hoax. But we printed it, and the newspaper had to answer for it. A stain on the Record, it compelled us to issue an apology and explanation the next day. But I was legally still on the hook.
With my court date set, and the threat of spending the rest of the week in the Boys State slammer, I turned to my adviser.
What do I do? Hire a Boys State attorney, he said. So I did, paying him with the cash pile of Monopoly money the newspaper had collected from ad sales.
With my attorney at my side, I walked into Boys State Court nervous and apprehensive. I had no idea what my attorney’s legal defense would be, except to explain that we were the victim of a hoax. But my lawyer read the lawsuit well, and his opening statement was succinct. He asked that the action — I was accused of slander — be immediately dismissed.
Why? The judge asked. “Because,” my attorney said with a knowing smile on his face, “slander is the spoken word; libel is written.”
Boom! I was out the courthouse doors in a flash and back to my office to put out the last issue of the Boys State Record.
Not only did the lawsuit teach me and anyone in that courtroom a journalism fundamental, it proved that the system of government we had set up worked. Justice prevailed. Boys State never felt so real as in that moment.
I don’t know where my brilliant attorney wound up, but I hope he’s raking in the dough in a successful legal practice. But in college, I happened to meet that Boys State judge. He had no recollection of that day in court. His whole Boys State experience was a judicial blur, he said.
But for me, it was a sweet spot — an indelible memory of civics at its best. Forty years later, I’m still in the newspaper business. And though I’ve never been sued as a real-life journalist, that crazy mock government taught me a lesson I’ll never forget.
And that’s how I spent my summer of 1977. Boys State proud. And free.