Forty-six rising high school seniors from Mercer County, including five from East Windsor, were among the 986 students from more than 325 New Jersey municipalities attending the 71st session of American Legion Jersey Boys State, held at Rider University from June 19 to 24.
The college-level seminar, sponsored by the American Legion Department of New Jersey, teaches civics and government at the local, county, and state levels. Students are typically chosen and sponsored by local American Legion posts and other community-based organizations.
Statesmen governed their own mythical 51st state of the union. Within 24 hours of their arrival, statesmen formed 18 mythical cities, divided into political parties and elected a mayor and city council from within their ranks. Each statesman had an opportunity to participate in the political party process by running for office and voting in elections, among other events.
By the end of the week, the delegation elected a governor, lieutenant governor and two Boys Nation senators who will attend a national program in Washington, D.C., this summer.
Speakers included Lt. Governor Kim Guadagno, U.S. Senators Bob Menendez and Cory Booker and Congressman Leonard Lance.
Leadership and career seminars were taught by business executives, military representatives, political consultants, law experts, journalists, and other professional experts;
A college fair featured more than 90 institutions from across the country.
Among the 44 Somerset County teens who attended were:
From Montgomery, sponsored by Post 12: Alex Cheung;
From Belle Mead, sponsored by Post 12: Daniel Choi, Jarrett Perkins;
From Skillman, sponsored by Post 12: Sireesh Vinnakota.
Mercer County teens who attended were:
From Hamilton: Rommy Abouelela, Andrew Bentz, Anthony Delle Grotti, Zachary Shulman, Faiq Siddiqui, James St. John, all sponsored by Post 31; Michael Carbone and Parthik Patel, sponsored by Post 93; Joseph Kale, Michael Reger and Jahmai Person, sponsored by Post 458: Zachary Landi, sponsored by Post 2000, and Sean O’Donnell, sponsored by Post 414.
From Princeton: Alexander Tillman, sponsored by Legion Post 339, and Jonathan Chao, by Legion Post 31.
From Princeton Junction: Akul Agarwal, Kyle Dixon-Anderson, David Koggan, Madhav Ramesh, all sponsored by Post 76, and Tommy Moxham, sponsored by Post 530.
From Ewing: Jonathan Nwigwe and Noah Hewitt, both by Post 314
From Robbinsville: Juan Flores Serrano, Benjamin Hutchison, Ryan Light, Evan McGough, Hugh O’Donnell, Aditya Pillai and Ashwin Reddy, all sponsored by Post 530, and Austin Nance, by Post 414.
From Yardville: Hunter Nolan, sponsored by Post 31;
From Plainsboro: Lucas Roberto, sponsored by Post 76;
From Trenton: John Ruzzi, sponsored by Post 458;
From East Windsor: Dhruv Samdani, Aditya Shah, Shivam Verma, all sponsored by Post 148; Brian Weiss, by Post 182, and Jeremy Masanque, by Post 2000.
From Lawrenceville: Zack Verga and Anthony Weiss, both sponsored by Post 414;
From West Windsor: John-Coahle Merryfield, John Mundia, Malay Trivedi and Ryan Zhang, all sponsored by Post 76; Rishab Bhandari, by Post 401, and Michael Rota, by Post 339.
