It’s another day at ALA Empire Girls State! And we were busy today!

Rankin County started today’s session by leading the ALA Empire Girls State general session in a flag raising ceremony. One important aspect of ALA EGS is learning about Americanism and respect for the American flag. ALA Department of New York Americanism Chairman Lucille Mozzillo will be helping our citizens create their county’s daily flag raising and lowering ceremonies. She also organized today’s POW/MIA ceremony.

ALA EGS Citizens had the great opportunity to have 2 guest speakers today! SUNY Brockport President Dr. Heidi Macpherson reminded us that every degree is worth it. It allows you to think deeply about who you are and encouraged citizens to do something they are passionate about.

ALA EGS 2013 and ALA Girls Nation alum Brooke DiPalma also spoke with us. She is the co-founder of P.S. I Love you day, Inc. Her talk with the citizens was also so powerful and poignant as she spoke about her journey to speak about mental health. She challenged the citizens to let this week at ALA EGS inspire them! 

Our ALA EGS Political Instructors Xamayla Rose and Jaime Ervin conducted a workshop on Policy. Did you know that Xamayla is a 1997 alumnae of ALA Empire Girls State and Jaime is a 1997 alumnae of Oklahoma Girls State? Jaime Ervin, Esq., CCEP, MSEd, is an attorney serving as General Counsel and Corporate Compliance Director of one of the largest and top ranked architecture and engineering firms in the nation. In addition to her legal experience, Jaime is a certified high school social teacher who is passionate about volunteering with the youth at ALA Empire Girls’ State and in her community. Xamayla Rose is from Brooklyn New York.  She is a Community leader with more than 15 yrs experience in government and non profit administration.  She is the former Deputy Public Advocate for Civic and Community Empowerment for the City of New York and currently works as a professor in the Nationally ranked Public Administration Department of Medgar Evers College.  Xamayla lectures on public policy and public program evaluation and speaks on civic engagement and voting rights. 

How lucky are we to have them here this week with us?

Together they explained the policy process in government and how our committees will work. Citizens are divided into two parties, Nationalists and Federalists, and within those parties, they work in their committees to create bills. All citizens serve on one of the following committees: Agriculture, Criminal Justice, Education/Technology, Environmental Conservation, Health, Homeland Security, Platform, or Campaign. Today committees elected a chair and vice chair and started brainstorming ideas of bills to help the counties in ALA Girls State.

The night ended with our first Party Caucus!!! The Nationalists (Nats) and Federalists (Feds) elected their Party Leaders! Congrats to all who were nominated and gave their two minute speeches and to those who won!

Here are the elected Nationalists and Federalists Party Leadership!