PARKERSBURG — U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito walked the streets of Parkersburg mid-morning Thursday as a United States senator.
She walked into the library at McKinley Elementary School to 26 fifth grade girls as the senator for about 30 minutes, put the power of the position and title aside and spoke woman-to-girl as part of her West Virginia Girls Rise Up! program. Capito has been presenting the program to fifth grade girls in the state.
The program has three main points: education, confidence and physical education. It strives to get fifth grade girls to express more belief in themselves, to step outside their comfort zones, to empower themselves to be whatever they might want to be.
Capito talked about how she became the first woman senator from West Virginia, some hard moments while growing up in and out of school; such as having a hard time riding horses and missing the first word of a spelling bee.
She talked to the girls about her political career and then switched gears to talk about Saria Blair of Martinsburg. “She was elected to the West Virginia Legislature when she was 17,” she told the girls. “She was 18 when she was sworn and she is 19. She’s the youngest state or federal legislator in the United States.”
Blair was elected to the West Virginia House of Delegates in May 2014, representing the 59th district, which takes in portions of Berkeley and Morgan counties.
“I didn’t like to speak in public when I was growing up and now that’s all I do,” Capito added as she walked around the room speaking about her childhood. She even led the room in a quick couple of lines of “It’s My Party,” the 1963 recording by Lesley Gore which eventually reached the top of the charts when Capito was 10-years-old; the age of many girls in the room.
At the end of the program, group sessions of girls wrote down individual goals to begin applying to their lives; ranging anywhere from “eating more fruit,” to “trying out for sports,” to “being nicer to my brother.”
“I thought everything today was pretty cool,” said Ariah Strong. “I was a bit nervous at first when they were saying the first female senator was coming by the school. But after a while, it wasn’t too bad. I got lots of good friends and good friends helped me keep my confidence. So it was all good.”
Alayna Liebay echoed the nervousness but “that came from meeting someone new,” she said. “It was a learning experience. You don’t get to see a United State Senator very often and the first one from West Virginia, that was pretty exciting.”
Angel Blackburn said she “wants to be an artist and a singer when she grows up. You know she had to be a hard worker to get to be a senator. She can do that, I can be what I want to be.”
Liebay added, “she (Capito) said for us to think of a goal every day to try to achieve it. But if you don’t succeed one day, don’t give up. Don’t quit and keep trying. Don’t let that one day stop you.”
