
By the time you read this, the election will be done and over. The robocalls will cease, Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign will stop texting its supporters and soon little holes will dot Santa Feans’ yards where campaign signs once stood.
Thank goodness.
SFR goes to press too early Tuesday evening for us to provide election results in our print edition (but go to swingstateofmind.com for ongoing coverage). But it’s never too early to look to the future. That’s why we decided this week to introduce Santa Feans to the next generation of leaders.
These young movers and shakers aren’t necessarily thinking about running for office one day. They mostly are focused on the present—whether it involves making thought-provoking films, working after school as a student lawyer or meeting with other students to promote equality.
Their backgrounds are diverse and their hopes are big. And, considering their impressive résumés at such young ages, who knows? One day, you may end up with one of their campaign signs in your front yard.
Julia Leitner, 18
Past and present: Julia Leitner’s background might lead you to think she has multiple personalities. She is a gymnast, a cellist and a participant in the Model UN. She also is a student lawyer in Teen Court, where she defends and prosecutes real-life juvenile offenders.
How does this all fit together? Leitner admits it is hard to summarize.
“I’ve been applying to colleges, writing these essays about myself and trying to figure out what the continuity is,” she says, sitting on the steps near Santa Fe Preparatory School, where she’s a student. “What I’ve found is, it’s stuff that I’m really passionate about. I’ve been doing gymnastics and cello so long, I can’t imagine my life without these things.”
For the last two years, Leitner has become interested in international affairs, highlighted by her two-year stint at the Model UN. In the UN program, 300 New Mexican students replicate the real United Nations, passing resolutions and debating foreign policy. Once a year, the group convenes at the Roundhouse for three days. This year, Leitner represents Italy.
“I got involved,” she says, “because I had this idealistic thing, like, one day I would make a difference.” Last summer, Leitner attended an even larger UN-type assembly in Washington, DC, along with 400 students from all over the world. The two-week program concluded with a UN simulation at the actual United Nations. “It was amazing,” she says.
More recently, Leitner’s interests have shifted to the Darfurian refugee crisis. After reading Dave Eggers’ book What is the What, she helped establish a social activism club at Santa Fe Prep and has been working with the Save Darfur campaign. She has helped out with bake sales that raise money for relief efforts already in Sudan, such as Doctors Without Borders.
The Future: Leitner is pinning her hopes on Ivy League schools. Yale is her first choice, although she also is looking at Dartmouth College and Princeton and Columbia universities. “If I don’t get in, I have a slough of other colleges—Wesleyan, Carlton…I kind of want to apply to Harvard, just to see if I get in,” she says. Though Leitner is not completely sold on a degree program, she plans on studying international relations.
On the ’08 election: Leitner just turned 18 a few weeks ago and is elated about the election. “This is the first year I’ll be able to vote, and I’m ridiculously excited,” she says. A volunteer for Tom Udall’s US Senate campaign, Leitner adds, “We’ve gotten so many people involved here. There seems to be a huge youth turnout.”
Changing the world: The Darfur refugee crisis is thousands of miles away from the day-to-day challenges of teen court. But in both realms, Leitner says, “You have the opportunity to change somebody else’s life. Hopefully by participating, someone else in high school will pick up on it.”
Andy Hyde, 17
Past and present: Andy Hyde is as all-American as they come. He loves God and baseball and serving his country, and he excels at expressing his appreciation for all three.
Hyde also has shown his proficiency as a businessman.
When he and his siblings were younger, SFHS counselor Rosemary Romero says, Hyde would pick mistletoe, wrap it in ribbons and put bells on it, and then sell it to passersby on the street.
“The kids collected their money for Christmas that way,” Romero says. “Isn’t that amazing?”
More recently, Hyde has worked in a church-run soup kitchen, feeding Santa Fe’s homeless. It was an eye-opener, he says.
“I was really surprised at how many homeless and struggling people there are out there [in Santa Fe],” Hyde tells SFR. “That motivates you to help out a little bit more, when you see how many people have problems.”
Counselor Romero, whose sons have played baseball with Hyde for years, says she was impressed by Hyde’s generosity toward others, homeless or otherwise. “He’ll go to other students’ houses and help out three or four kids at a time,” she says.
She notes that younger kids also look up to him. “He doesn’t do drugs or get into any trouble,” Romero says. “The kids look up to him and they know, by his example, that that’s not the right thing to do.”
Hyde’s altruism lends itself naturally to sports. He coached kids age 6 through 12 at a weeklong Santa Fe High-sponsored baseball camp held at the Genoveva Chavez Community Center. Hyde currently plays outfield on Santa Fe High’s varsity team and has been playing since he was 6.
Why baseball? “It’s kept me out of trouble,” Hyde says matter-of-factly. “It puts structure in my life.”
Hyde’s love of structure is evident in his academic pursuits as well. Aside from tutoring other classmates in physics, he is planning on studying engineering once he gets to college. Hyde has one place in mind for post-graduation: the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado.
Considering Hyde’s antipathy towards Sen. John McCain—primarily over his views on the Iraq occupation—the military seems a curious choice for Hyde. He is not interested in the warfare aspect of the Air Force, however. Hyde says he really just wants to fly airplanes.
The Future: Hyde is currently going through the rigorous application process the Air Force Academy requires. According to the academy’s admissions literature, candidates are required to fill out an application in addition to submitting nominations from state representatives (Hyde has already been in touch with Rep. Tom Udall’s office as well as Sen. Pete Domenici). Lastly, Hyde must pass a medical exam and a fitness assessment.
On the ’08 election: Hyde is too young to vote but, even if he could, he wouldn’t. He is far from apathetic about the democratic process, however. He explains, “There are issues on both sides [of the presidential election] that I don’t agree with, so I probably wouldn’t vote. With Obama, I don’t agree with his views on abortion at all. With McCain, it’s the war in Iraq—I don’t see the point in it.”
Changing the world: As a standout on his high school baseball team and (hopefully) a soon-to-be US Air Force Academy cadet, Hyde says, “I have been given a lot of opportunities…I really think I can help out with the less-fortunate people.”
Consuelo Althouse, 19
Past and present: Conci Althouse only graduated from high school—Monte del Sol—a year ago. But she already has one feature film, Shedding Skin, under her belt and another in post-production.
Althouse along with friends Jonah Zimmerberg-Helms and Adam Mclean are the minds behind SaneAslyum Syndicate, a film production company. Shedding Skin was shown at the Santa Fe Film Festival last year and was a philosophical meditation on the meaning of life in a post 9.11 world. The threesome’s current production, The Pardoner’s Tale , modernizes Geoffrey Chaucer’s 16th century tale, and queries the nature of corruption, greed and contemporary confusion.
The heady topics of the films, Althouse says, are a way to provoke thought while also allowing her to engage her creativity. She refers to the style of filmmaking as “interactive voyeurism.” “So that the audience, instead of being a fly on the wall, are actually a character in and of itself. There’s some sort of connection between the audience and the film. By using media, we don’t just hand out information on a silver platter. We try to keep it creative and let the audience spur their own thoughts.”
Coming at ideas from a different angle comes naturally to Althouse. By the age of 18, she had worked on several short films as a writer, director, actor and videographer. She also helped make a youth-made anti-drug film for the state of New Mexico that was distributed throughout the state, mostly in juvenile detention centers. In that project, Althouse says, she and the other youth tried to create a film that was positive, rather than fear based. “We ended up going to different people and getting interviews and biographical stories by people, and their connections with and consequences of drug abuse. We tried not to impose too much the negative aspects of doing drugs, but instead show the positive aspects of not participating in that world.”
At Warehouse 21, Althouse ran silk-screening programs and worked on the youth radio program Ground Zero. But she attributes much of her passion for making films with a message to her volunteer work with groups like Earth Care International and Bioneers, which led her to such places as St. Petersburg, Russia, where she helped lead a workshop on the ecology of peace and war.
“That will always be at the core of me,” Althouse says of her ecology volunteerism. “Whenever I’m working on a film and forget about motives, I think that whole realm will always come out.”
The Future: Althouse plans to move to Los Angeles and set up a branch of SaneAsylum Syndicate there. More school is probably in her future and, without doubt, more films. “Everyone’s seen Supersize Me and An Inconvenient Truth and all these big films, even films like The Matrix or V for Vendetta . They may be fictional narratives, but they are still strong on message. I would love to be involved in documentaries and in future narrative because it’s a way to really experiment with communication and still be creative with it.”
On the ’08 election: Althouse says Obama seems like the best president for her right now. But she also looks at the election—as she does most issues—from a broader perspective. “My generation is going to be the largest generation voting block. And it seems that my generation, just by the nature of what’s going on, is getting heated up because it’s starting to trickle down and directly affect us: We’re going to be the first generation in history to die younger than the previous generation, the first generation in American history to be passed down a country that’s in decline. We have bigger issues we’re going to have to deal with than most generations have had to deal with.”
Changing the World: “In terms of making an impact, whether it be small or large, it would be really rewarding and really satisfying to use these films—and more than take my opinions and all my ideals of society and push them onto people—to allow people to think for themselves.”
Aaron Alamillo, 18
Past and present: If you want to discuss student government, gay rights or Capital High School’s dance team or theater program, senior Aaron Alamillo is your go-to guy. He is deeply involved in all four.
And he is apparently everywhere at once: Alamillo’s classes start at 7:30 am and end at 3:45 pm. From 4 to 6 pm, he is in dance rehearsals, and from 6:15 to 11:30 pm he works at Hollister clothing store or the Regal Santa Fe Stadium 14 movie theater. After work at one of his two jobs, he goes home, does homework and passes out around 2 am. Then he wakes up and does it all over again.
He is most visible around Capital for his involvement in the Student Government Association. Alamillo’s title as senior representative means he fills a vice-presidential role in student politics. He helps organize pep rallies and community outreach, and speaks for the SGA’s president when she is not available.
Alamillo points to the positive change in attitude he has seen in his last three years at Capital. The school has long had a bad reputation, he says, compared to Capital’s rival, Santa Fe High School.
“It’s pretty sad that we’re seen as the ‘ghetto kids,’” Alamillo says. “But we’re slowly getting more recognition—better recognition.”
Alamillo personally has been participating in “penny drives”—a program where kids are encouraged to donate pocket change to cancer research.
His main focus, however, is on gay rights at Capital. He is the leader of the school’s Gay-Straight Alliance. As such, Alamillo and some of his classmates have gone to the state Legislature to encourage the passage of a statewide domestic partnership bill. The issues Alamillo mentions are the same hot-button topics that are being debated nationally—gay marriage, same-sex access to insurance and adoption. More recently, Alamillo has been pushing the school to allow same-sex couples’ photos to appear in Capital’s yearbook.
“The way I see myself is, I have to fight for my opinion and others,’” he says.
As if this were not enough to fill up his day, Alamillo also heads the school’s dance team and theater program.
The Future: Alamillo is applying to the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising in California, as well as the University of California in Los Angeles, Georgetown University, New York University and other schools.
He also hopes to stay involved in gay rights issues as well as student government.
“I’m going to check in with my [former] teachers,” he says, adding, “I hope to leave some of what we taught to the underclassmen.”
On the ’08 election: Alamillo does not like Obama as much as he dislikes McCain’s running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. “McCain, he has good views and stuff. But I give him up to a year before he dies and she takes over. I believe in the idea of a woman president…but not her. Her beliefs are ridiculous. She strikes me as incompetent.”
Changing the world: Alamillo plans to approach life the way he has approached school. “I’m pretty much just hoping to open the eyes of others, get them more involved in their communities…turn the negativity away and turn on the positive.” Elizabeth McCann, 17
Past and present: Elizabeth McCann says she found her voice at Monte del Sol Charter School, after she moved to Santa Fe in the eighth grade from Pojoaque.
She says, for the first three years of high school, she was not too involved in school or community activities. But this year she felt a change was in order, and she took a leadership role in the school’s Honor Council. This is a school program that allows students to determine punishment for their wayward colleagues. If kids are caught lying to a teacher or cheating on a test, for example, their fates are decided largely by McCann and a few other students (with faculty oversight, of course).
Before joining the Honor Council this year, McCann says, “I had a lot of friends who have gotten into trouble, and the punishment seemed so severe and it didn’t change them at all.”
McCann joined the Honor Council because she wanted fellow students to see a familiar face when they get in trouble. “I thought, well, having a student listen to other students might help,” she says.
Seth Biderman, a Monte del Sol teacher (and SFR contributor) who helped organize the Honor Council, says McCann has been very empathetic towards the students.
Recently, a student was caught plagiarizing on a test. Biderman says the Honor Council decided her punishment would be to talk with all her teachers, explaining what she did. The purpose was to teach the student about accountability and integrity.
“They’re very creative in their punishments,” Biderman says. “That’s not something I would have come up with.”
As for McCann herself, Biderman explains that she is unique among her peers.
“Her initiative has impressed me,” he says, “and she also has something that’s hard to find in anybody, of any age—she has great follow-through. Elizabeth is dependable as a rock.”
The Future: Currently, McCann is looking for a job that will help pay her way to Spain, where she hopes to study next year. “I’ve never even been out of New Mexico,” she says, noting that she is only halfway toward her $3,000 goal.
After graduating, McCann plans on staying close to home to attend the University of New Mexico or New Mexico State University.
“People complain about how boring it is here, but I don’t agree,” she says.
On the ’08 election: McCann is too young to vote, but she did her part for the Obama campaign, working the phones and knocking on doors in the final days of the election. She believes strongly in the Illinois senator’s message of hope: “When I get out of college, I don’t want to have $43,000 worth of debt, and I want to be able to get my own health care when my mom’s expires for me.”
She was motivated to volunteer by a desire to rid the world of voter complacency. “Since I couldn’t vote, I decided I could get others who could vote to vote,” she says. “There are so many registered voters who never show up to the polls.”
Changing the world: Though only 17, McCann sees herself helping the next generation. “I can be a positive leader for younger kids who aren’t finding their way,” she says.
Matthew Reichbach, 23
Past and present: Hurricane Katrina galvanized many Americans in different ways. For Reichbach, it sent him straight to his computer—and he has barely left since.
Reichbach is the writer behind the prodigious blog NMFBIHOP.com (New Mexico From the Local Perspective). He’s also a writing fellow with the New Mexico Independent and an occasional contributor to Daily Kos.
His fascination with politics really kicked into gear in ’06, with the congressional race between Republican Heather Wilson and Democrat Patricia Madrid. Reichbach had taken a few political science courses here and there (he attended both New Mexico Tech and a community college in Albuquerque), but he’s pretty much self-educated on politics as a result of voracious news consumption.
He’s the first to be surprised that in just a few years, he’s not just writing full time, but people are reading what he’s writing. He recently had 30,000 hits on his blog in one week.
Reichbach is motivated by a desire to make sure people hear about everything that happens. For him, if a political event goes uncovered, it’s like it never happened. That’s why he has put 10,000 miles on his car in just two months, attending as many campaign events as possible, sometimes posting 20 times a day (and hosting a live Tuesday podcast each week).
“There’s a big hunger out there for more information than you see in the one daily paper in Albuquerque or the daily paper in [Las] Cruces or Santa Fe. When a [newspaper] reporter only writes one story a day, they miss a lot of things. I think I fill a niche.”
And while he does approach his writing from a progressive/Democratic viewpoint, “there are some things you just can’t do partisan, like the numbers. I’m a big numbers nerd. You can make it partisan, but then you make yourself look like an idiot; the polls show what the polls show.”
Reichback realized how far he had come when he attended last summer’s Democratic National Convention in Denver. “I kept saying, ‘What am I doing here? How did I get it here?’ You look around and see [Rep.] Nancy Pelosi and [Sen.] Chuck Schumer and powerful politicians that are shaping this country, and then there’s me: some 23-year-old who started his own blog because he felt like he had something to say.”
The future: “I’m just going to keep blogging, do whatever I can, just keep going. I always tell people, ‘I had no plan for any of this to happen. It seems to have just kind of fallen into place.’ I don’t have a plan, I’m just going to keep writing.” And that writing, he says, will likely be online, which is where he (and, of course, many others) believes the future of journalism may lie. “In the future, there’s going to be a fundamental shift and I’m hoping to be on the front edge of that shift. I don’t want to be like the car companies in Detroit, where they’re still making SUVs and all people want is hybrids.”
On the ’08 election: “I just think it’s just a transformational election, in the same way that Ronald Reagan was in 1980. I think it’s just going to transform politics and move politics a little farther away from the conservative bent we’ve had for the last two decades.”
Changing the world: “I just want to inform people about what’s going on and let them see my point of view on it. Then they can come back and talk to me if they want. It’s about discourse; it’s about being more open with everything.” SFR