By Jacob Strain | City of Nelson, Cameron County

The first day of Badger Boys State is all about setting the bar for our week of intensity. We spent the first day being told not only that we will fail, but that we need to fail. We were told that Badger Boys is a safe place to fail and that we need to go above and beyond and not to be afraid to fall from what we thought we would achieve.

As writer Howard Mark said, “You learn nothing from success. You only learn from failure. Experience is what you got when you didn’t get what you wanted.”

They want us to aim big and fail hard. They want us to learn from these failures and use them to become not just better politicians, but better doctors, lawyers and people.

Inspiring speeches aside, when I first arrived to Badger Boys I went and interviewed what each citizen wanted to achieve while at this land of opportunity. What I found was shocking, no one knew what they were going to do.

Out of the 32 interviewed, 5 knew that they wanted to run for a position. However, by the end of the first day I asked them what they wanted to be and everyone suddenly decided to shoot for the stars regardless of how hard it is or if they even win.

The second day is seemingly very different, it seems every citizen wants the largest piece of this opportunity they can get. One friend I interviewed when I first arrived wanted to be part of the justice system as a lawyer, now he says that he wants to be in city, county and state government.

While this will result in numerous speeches, it definitely had the desired effect upon the populous.

Who knows where today’s aspiring governors may go from here, but one thing seems sure, they plan to go inspire others as they have been here.