The Youngest Candidate

Oct. 6, 2004

The Youngest Candidate
At a time when many young adults can‘t get it together to vote, Jason Glover, 21, is doing the unexpected: running for a post on the Northwestern Michigan College (NMC) Board of Trustees.
An NMC graduate last spring with an associate‘s degree in visual communications, Glover has been a political activist for several years. He‘s helped organized local “Buy Nothing Day” protests over the past few Thanksgivings, was involved in a Green Party “TV Turnoff Week” fundraiser, and has been active in Rock the Vote concerts to register young voters. He‘s also the editor and publisher of Third Eye, a youth-oriented monthly which has published its fourth issue.
He says his involvement in the local Green Party chapter influenced his decision to run for the college trustee‘s post.
“We were going over the last election results to see where Green Party candidates had done the best and it seemed that across the board it was for university trustees and board of education posts,” he recalls.
Michigan‘s Green Party hopes to build a political base from the ground up with candidates who will bring green values to local institutions. “Not only am I a candidate with Green Party values, but I‘m also unique in that I‘m at the beginning of my political career instead of at the end like many candidates,” he says.
If elected, Glover hopes to bring some new blood to NMC‘s board of trustees, contributing ideas that represent the concerns of young adults.
“I‘m coming from a period of time in life when people ask questions about themselves and the world,” he notes. “That should be represented on campus.”
“The other big issue for me is the greening of NMC. One of the biggest assets of our area is the environment and this is a good opportunity to teach that and put it into practice. I‘d like to make sure that everything at the college is environmentally friendly. There will be some implementation costs, I‘m sure, but in the long run they will pay for themselves because environmental responsibility is the direction the world is heading in.”
He‘d also like to limit the campus to access by military recruiters. “This is a vulnerable time in peoples‘ lives for making career choices and military recruiters should be limited to career days like everyone else. Now, they have free reign to the campus and put their brochures all over the college.”
That opposition extends to denying students‘ names and addresses to Uncle Sam‘s recruiters. “The college is obligated to hand out the names of students to recruiters to get federal aid, but students should know that they can get their names off the list. They should be able to sign off and not be pestered by recruiters. There should be something like the no-call list for telemarketers.”
Additionally, Glover would like to see more student input in NMC‘s direction, including publicizing board meetings and agendas. He‘d also like an investigation of WNMC-FM, stating that he‘s heard complaints about how the station is being run and what gets aired.
In short, Glover has a thoughtful agenda of ideas centered in the concerns of young adults. If elected, he believes the trustee‘s post could lead to bigger things. “It‘s a good springboard to other offices, Congress or whatever,” he says. “A lot of state candidates got their start on school boards or college boards.”

-- Robert Downes
BRIEFS
SEASONAL ROAD SNOWMOBILES: New legislation will allow snowmobiles to be operated within the right-of-way of a public limited-access highway, if the road is designated as a snowmobile trail by the Michigan Department of Transportation and the Department of Natural Resources.
“This legislation will greatly improve winter tourism in northern Michigan,” said State Senator Jason Allen, who is a sponsor of Senate bill 1329. “By allowing for snowmobile traffic along limited access highways, we can now solve the problem of getting from Gaylord to Cheboygan via snowmobile.”
The bill was introduced by Allen on the basis of a recommendation by a taskforce that studied how to establish a snowmobile trail between Gaylord and Cheboygan. The legislation will now go before the Senate for a vote. Only roads approved for safety will be considered.

ALL THAT TANZ: Memorabilia, photos and misty memories are being sought for a Tanz Haus Reunion night to commemorate the rock & roll nightclub in Acme which launched many a local band and one night stand back in the ‘60s and ‘70s. Streeter‘s in TC is collecting the gear for a display at Ground Zero on Friday, Oct. 15. A house band and special musical guests will recapture the Tanz Haus‘s spirit. Doors open at 7 p.m., $8 in advance, $10 at the door.

BRAGGIN‘ RIGHTS: Northern Express took several awards in the Michigan Press Association‘s annual Better Newspaper Contest for weeklies in the 10,000-25,000 circulation range. Rick Coates took first place in Enterprise Reporting for his two-part series: “Dr. Kevorkian Breaks His Silence,“ George Foster took second place for Sports Columnist, and Robert Downes took second place for News Picture with a photo depicting environmental illness. On the design side, Melanie Knight won two awards for her ad designs for Venus in TC and Laura Cherven won an award for her Galley Gourmet design in Petoskey.