by J. Brooks Terry
Staff Writer
Mounting a large scale re-creation of the elections process isn’t easy, but luckily the Supervisor of Elections Office had some help from some friends in high places.
As part of the 2004 Mock Convention mentoring program, elected officials, including Sheriff John Rutherford, City Council president Lad Daniels and vice president Elaine Brown and Atlantic Beach mayor John Meserve spoke at 32 area schools about their experiences prior to, during and after getting elected.
Participating schools included Bishop Kenny, Seacoast Christian Academy, the University of North Florida and The Bolles School.
“Our mission is to encourage elected officials and candidates to address young students as viable members of the voting population, thereby fostering active voting habits in the 18- to 25-year-old demographic,” said Duval County Supervisor of Elections John Stafford.
Rutherford, who was the last scheduled speaker of the month-long program, said he was pleased with the response he received from the students at Baldwin High School and was “glad he had the opportunity to get involved.”
“Mentoring really is a great thing to be able to do,” he said. “If you do it right, you can, hopefully, help someone else avoid making the same mistakes that you had to make when you were running.
“I really enjoyed sharing my philosophies of what’s right and wrong with the students and I hope they were able to take away something when it was over.”