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Introduction
Introduction: Level 1
| The essence of Boys State is a program in which participants learn about leadership by becoming a mock, or virtual, government. This technique, which we refer to as learning-by-doing, was the goal Legionnaires Hayes Kennedy and Harrold L. Card wanted to reach when they founded Boys State in Illinois in 1935. |
| Kansas was the fifth state in the country to adopt this program. The first session of Boys State was held June 6 - 12, 1937 at Wichita University (renamed Wichita State University) in what is now called Wilner Auditorium. The program was also held at North High and West High during the Wichita years. |
| In 1963 the program moved from Wichita to the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas. |
| In 1991 the program moved to its current location, Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas. |
| Our major goal at Boys State is to challenge you to consider, perhaps for the first time, your political belief system. Our experience indicates that most people have developed their political thinking by borrowing ideas from respected friends, teachers and parents. We are not interested in whether your personal political interests are conservative, liberal or somewhere in between. Our concern is that your opinions are yours, based on your own convictions about the role of government. |
| The big question is--where do people 'learn' such convictions? We would not assume for one minute that a week-long experience with us will shape your political thinking for a lifetime, but we know that many of the 50,000+ young men from Kansas who have attended Boys State can trace the beginning of their political interests to this experience. Even if you are not interested in ever running for political office as a career, per se, you will be interested in the laws which are passed which will affect your life and the lives of people around you. |
| It all boils down to leadership. Leadership is a hard thing to teach because good leadership is usually only learned over a lifetime of challenges and opportunities. Your week at Boys State condenses what might take several months in real life to less than 168 hours. We think that such a compressed simulation helps people learn lessons about the actions and consequences of leadership in a very realistic way. |
| The process of making laws, understanding taxes, cooperating with political action organizations are all part of the week you will experience called Boys State. |
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