Crossing Students Explore Indiana Government

When we got there, we briefly ate packed lunches then huddled up for directions from Mr. Bohannon and the other staff members who were there. The first thing on the agenda was to meet with Senator Yoder. He gave a small speech about himself then began to talk about what he does and the choices he’s faced with. It was interesting to learn about the things he deals with like how far the public takes situations if they dislike a certain decision that has been made; citizens picketing the State House and/or his own house, is something he described to us. A couple students from the Crossing asked him a few questions along with the staff and I thought it was cool that we got to interact with real governing bodies professionally; it’s not an experience regular students get to have. After we finished speaking with Senator Yoder, we took some pictures then proceeded to meet with a few other representatives whose names I forget, but one was recently a part of the House across the hall. It reminded me of a history lesson, especially when they “quizzed” us on how many senators there were and how many members of the House there were; now I know there are 50 senators and 100 members in the House. We also met with the chaplain in the State House, who was interesting to learn about as well. It really touched me when he explained that he volunteers to be their chaplain for no pay, but sees it as his calling from God. When we finished meeting with all of the representatives on our agenda, we took a small tour of the building and learned about its history. After that, we had a little fun and went to the mall then took the entire group to eat at a fancy restaurant named Buca di Beppo. All in all, I thought the trip was awesome and a seriously cool life experience. It went very well and it made me proud to be a part of the crew since we all behaved very professionally. I think it gives us a good image to do things like this and gives people a different perspective of the Crossing, rather than having people look at us like we’re just a bunch of kids. – Natalie McKay, Senior @ Elkhart Campus  ]]>