LAKEPORT — Last week”s National Youth League Conference wasn”t 16-year-old Taylor Somers” first trip to Washington D.C. And it won”t be his last.
He”s conservative about whether or not he”ll run for president. Of course, the Lakeport Alternative School junior is conservative on most other political fronts as well. He says once he turns 18 he will register as an Independent.
Among those he respects most politically is Pat Buchanan, who Taylor said he admires for his independent thinking.
Taylor”s immediate goals include graduating high school a year early, finishing his Associates of Arts from Mendocino College, and then, if all goes well, he”s off to Hillsdale College and eventually Georgetown University to pursue a law degree. One thing is for certain: Taylor is going places.
Taylor returned last week from the National Youth Leaders Conference in Washington D.C. after a fellow in his debate club nominated him to attend. The conference is designed to give “promising students” the opportunity to discuss current issues and events with top policy makers “in an energy-charged environment that is far from the traditional classroom experience,” according to the NYLC Web site.
“The highlight was just the few minutes I got to spend in the Senate judiciary committee watching the senators you see on CSPAN all the time,” Taylor said, adding that he had watched Samuel Alito”s Superior Court confirmation hearings and was familiar with the names and faces of several of the committee members.
The experience was far from the theoretical learning he pursues hungrily in the classroom, he said. “It was closer to where the work of government actually gets done than textbooks and simply taking classes on the subject because it was right there, and you got to experience that,” said Taylor.
He describes Washington D.C. as a cleaner city than some he”s seen, noting its many historical monuments and a general vibe he finds attractive. “There”s very much a feeling of power at work there,” Taylor says with a hidden smile.
Taylor”s first trip to D.C. was right after 9/11, when he was 11 years old. He went back in the summers of 2005 and 2006, both times after taking a three-week summer school course at the John Hopkins Center for Talented Youth in Pennsylvania, each worth an entire semester of high school credit. In 2005, the three-week course”s topic was international politics; in 2006, Islam.
This most recent trip to Washington D.C. took his natural interests a step further, which his parents and teachers said were easy to see at an early age.
His parents Karen and Jim Bengard noticed that Taylor was growing bored academically as early as fifth grade. They decided to home school him so he could learn at his own pace. Karen recalls bringing him to the couple”s Lakeport produce marketing office with her to do his schoolwork.
“He”s very much a self-starter,” she said, recounting how she would tutor him in math and English the most. When it came to history, Taylor loved to do research on his own.
Taylor maintains a 4.0 average in both his regular high school subjects and in the courses he takes simultaneously at Mendocino College, for which he gets double credit toward his high school graduation and his Associates of Arts. And that”s not even the half of it.
The friend who nominated Taylor to attend the leadership conference in D.C. knows him through the Junior Scholars of America (JSA) debate club. He was introduced to the program through his teacher Rena Roush, who coordinates his high school course work with him and his parents.
Roush described the home school experience through Lakeport Alternative Education as being similar to a traditional public education in that students have the same rights and privileges and resources as other students in the district. The difference, she said is that Lakeport Alternative is able to focus more on student interests.
Taylor fits into the category of those not feeling intellectually challenged, said Roush. On paper, she explains, Taylor is a high school sophomore. But he could graduate a year early in the spring of 2008, given the credits he”s earned.
Taylor came to her in September of 2005 with a desire to graduate early and pursue a college education. “When he first came to me he talked about a real passion for economics, and about eventually becoming an economics major,” recalls Roush.
She described JSA as a student-lead government in which participants simulate what state legislators and government officials would do in a mock setting with their peers. They campaign for elected positions, present legislation in the form of bills to be debated and reviewed, said Roush. Speakers encourage the students that they are the country”s future. “They really ask them to consider that the way they promote themselves could someday put them in a position of real life leadership,” she added.
Roush described an appropriate “quiet defiance” she sees in Taylor, who has been known to challenge the answers he finds in his text books. “On occasion he”s been right, or at least his argument was convincing enough to give him an A for effort,” she said.
Taylor also loves to play devil”s advocate and had ample opportunity to do so when he volunteered to be the Democratic leader in a simulation of the Congressional legislative process at NYLC.
So where is Taylor going to be in five, 10 or 20 years?
Taylor said he may go into practice in congressional law somewhere in D.C., and then perhaps run for office.
His global concerns include Islamic terrorism, US dependence on oil, and the rise of China as a military and economic force. Domestically, streamlining government is one of his biggest concerns.
But Taylor is not all work and no play. He said he tries to get to Lake Tahoe for skiing as often as he can, and he has recently taken up piano. Other than that, he said debating is what he does for fun.
“I would not be surprised to see his name on a ballot somewhere someday,” said Roush. “He is a high-achieving, very motivated student that has kind of stick-to-it motivation to really achieve anything that he puts his mind to do.”
Contact Tiffany Revelle at trevelle@record-bee.com.
