Leadership of Optimist youth program changes hands

Thomas Meyer has sold a lot of property in his life, but the sales job he's most proud of has nothing to do with real estate. Rather, it's been selling teenagers on the importance of getting involved in government and community.

For 25 years Meyer coordinated the Optimist Youth in Government, which has won awards from Optimist International and has been adopted by several other Optimist chapters. Now Meyer is passing the torch to Wayne Wallingford, who is vice commander of American Legion Post 63 in Cape Girardeau.

In April 1984, Meyer was the driving force behind launching the Optimist Youth in Government program in the area. The program, sponsored by the four Cape Girardeau and two Jackson Optimist clubs, works with local educators and government officials to pair high school students with government and civil service workers for a day, giving the youth a lesson in civics. About 80 students from Cape Girardeau, Jackson, Delta and Oak Ridge high schools participate annually in the program on the first Wednesday in May.

Meyer said a personal experience at a mock trial as a seventh-grader inspired him to start the Youth in Government program.

"I was in a jury at the old police station," Meyer said. "Students made up not only the jury, but also were the judge and the prosecuting and defense attorneys."

Growing up in the 1960s also contributed to Meyer's interest in government and the political process. Pointing to the assassinations of John and Bobby Kennedy, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and also the war in Vietnam, he said, "There was so much going on around me I became aware of the importance of my involvement as a voter."

Meyer said the program is in good hands with Wallingford.

"Wayne is very politically astute, and he has a lot of good contacts," Meyer said. "And you always need some new blood."

Meyer said the thing he'll miss most about being directly in charge of the program is seeing students undergo what he called "an awakening" regarding their involvement in community.

"You can just see it in their eyes," he said.