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Mrs. Holt – My First Presidential Election


Since today is the election I can’t help but think back to some of my favorite memories of election night in the past.  Thinking back 20 years I remember the first election night where I stayed up late watching the returns.  I was nine years old and the race was between incumbent President George H.W. Bush and a young governor named Bill Clinton.  A wealthy Ross Perot was also in the race as an independent.

I was in fourth grade and my teacher, Mrs. Holt, decided to teach us about the election process.  Leading up to the election she divided the class into two “parties” and had us pick candidates to campaign for class president.  Each party could choose a name, a theme, a candidate and most importantly a mascot.  If I remember correctly my team selected the monkey as the mascot, because monkeys are the best.  The other team selected the owl.

I was selected to represent my party in the election and it was incredibly exciting.  I was determined to win.  Over the course of a few days I gave a little speech, I hand wrote countless signs to put up on the walls.  I remember specifically staying in during recess to make signs because I was so committed to winning.
I was up against Megan Jones, not only was she popular and interesting because her family owned a buffalo farm and ostriches and stuff, but she was pretty good looking.  I know that I had a crush on her.  Not only that but going into the race we each had exactly half of the class in our party, so to win was going to take a lot of work.

I remember thinking that I needed to first ensure that nobody in my party would abandon ship.  If I could get all of their support than there was no way that I could lose, as long as nobody was sick that day.  Once I had my base locked up I knew that I only needed to pick off a couple of people in the other party to get the victory.  I started to work on a couple of the girls that I hung out with during recess, we played a lot of a certain kind of tag…  They were committed to their party but they were open to what I had to say, I had two or three that I thought may be switchable.  I also talked to a couple of the boys who I knew had little interest in the election.  In an election where everybody is forced to vote the people who could care less become really important.

Anyway, we gave our speeches and we made our case and then the class voted.  When the votes had been counted I did very well and easily won the election.  Megan was not happy.  I remember going up to talk to her and getting slapped in the face.  I think that was the first time a girl slapped me, unfortunately not the last.  (As a side note the animosity didn’t last and we ended up friends after that and you should know Megan is not the slapping type, it was just a tough battle.)

The whole process got me so excited that when the actual election night came I was glued to the TV.  Mrs. Holt had given us each a map of the country that had the number of electoral votes on each state.  I sat up all night watching the returns come in with a red pencil and a blue pen coloring in each state as they were announced.  I even had a regular pencil ready just in case Ross Perot took a state.  I was glued to the TV with my friend Scott Smith.  It was better than any movie I had ever seen.

From that day forward I could not miss an election night.  I have loved the democratic process ever since.  That day week in fourth grade is when I started to think about my desire to run for office one day.  It was then that I first started saying that I wanted to be the president.  Mrs. Holt, whose first name I do not even remember, introduced me to our election system in a way that literally changed my life.  She didn’t have to have class elections, she didn’t have to assign us to mark the maps with at least 10 states before we went to bed, but she did.

I always liked Mrs. Holt, I helped to organize a surprise birthday party for her because she was a fun teacher that the class liked.  But I will forever be grateful to her for helping me to understand how important the election process is in a republic.  I will always be indebted to her for putting me on a path that has led to amazing experiences and wonderful opportunities.

Mrs. Holt’s was an excellent teacher and for that I will always be grateful.
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