By: Joshua Tardy – Boy’s State #0304

On Monday morning all us boys were present at an assembly. New York State Assemblyman, Colin Schmitt of Assembly District 99 attended the assembly as a guest speaker. Mr. Schmitt took part in Boy’s State in 2007, which he was a resident of the city Roosevelt. Mr. Schmitt is from Orange county and represented Orange county when he took part in Boy’s State.

At the assembly Mr.Schmitt was continuously carrying out a message of “Showing up is the hardest part”. For only being at Boy’s State for two days he wanted to leave. Mr.Schmitt stated, “I wanted to call my dad and get picked up”. Mr.Schmitt was laying low because he didn’t want to be there, he was trying his best not to be noticed. Unfortunately, that backfired for him, for the reason being he was assigned the job of “Road guard”. At Boy’s State “Road guard” is assigned to two people per a county, who wear bright orange neon traffic vests when their county is crossing a main road. Mr.Schmitt was being assigned a vast amount of jobs and he was executing them.

At the time Mr.Schmitt didn’t realize how much Boy’s State was going to mean to him. It wasn’t until freshman year in college when he happened to meet someone else who was also attended Boy’s State. They were able to talk about similar experiences they both faced while at Boy’s State and how the key attributes of unity, discipline, and cohesion would shape them to who they are today and the leadership they possess.

New York State Assemblyman, Colin Schmitt of Assembly District 99 had a moving quote at the assembly this morning, “showing up is the hardest part”. Mr.Schmitt wasn’t enjoying himself at first while at Boy’s State, it wasn’t until years later when he found out the significance that Boy’s State had did for him.