Girls State topic at Kiwanis meeting

Janna Bergstedt introduced Marva Miska and Cassie Reidburn, who both spoke on Girls State at last week’s Kiwanis Club meeting.

Miska is the Girls State representative and spoke about the program. Reidburn is a senior who attended Girls State. She plans to attend the University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, next year and major in psychology. She is in various activities at the high school and works at Ave Maria Village.

Reidburn told of the government offices that everyone got into right away the day they got to Girls State. There are state, city and county governments and they had to elect officers for all the various offices. They were split into six cities. She was elected to a city council. She said she learned a lot about parliamentary procedure. They also put together measure topics to vote on and she said some disension became quite heated. They ranged from smoking bans to recycling and the environment.

Then she spoke about the youth gathering that she was going to through Trinity Lutheran Church. They had gone to New Orleans three years ago and worked on a literacy program. They had a summer reading program for the children. This year they will work on Joey’s Hope, filling backpacks with food for children on the weekend. They will work on other projects too. The Kiwanis group took up a collection to help them get there. There will be 36,000 youth altogether working on various activities.

Tim Burchill led the meeting with 21 members attending along with these guests: Dan Vanoinen, Key Club adviser; Kirstie Dobson, youth leader, Trinity Lutheran Church; and Erin Bentz and Stacy Fritz, who are also going on the trip to New Orleans. Don and Sharon Caine led the group singing and “Happy Dollars” was collected by Si Liechty for Camp Rokiwan.

Following the meeting, members met to do the ditch cleanup. Sandy Franke will introduce the speaker at the July 2 noon luncheon at the Lantern Room.

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