ENMU hosts Boys State

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Christian Crawford was sworn into office as New Mexico governor Thursday morning, and by 1 p.m. he had appointed 15 members to his cabinet, signed 12 pieces of legislation into law and vetoed a few other bills.

All in a day’s work — literally — for the 17-year-old Lovington resident running his mock state government at Eastern New Mexico University.

The New Mexico American Legion’s Boys State program was held at the university this week with high school juniors from across the state learning how municipal, county and state government work by running their own makeshift governments — a process that Crawford and his Chief of Staff, Alexander Salazar, 17, of Albuquerque, say is fast and furious.

According to Crawford and Salazar, at the start of the program on Monday, students were divided into four fictional cities — Castio, Cortez, Armijo and Trujillo — in the two counties of De Castro and De Leon.

From that point on, boys from the “Federalist” and “Nationalist” parties began campaigning, appointing and running governments at the municipal, county and state levels.

“I focused a lot on character and qualifications. I stressed to the citizens in both our primary and our general election to not vote by party lines but rather be examining (the candidate’s) character and qualifications,” Crawford said of his campaign strategy. “I talked to different citizens of the cities; I would start a conversation with them and get their opinion on things — basically, what you would see (with campaigning) on the news with real politicians.”

Salazar was initially running for governor as well, but was chosen by Crawford for his chief of staff after the election.

“From the get-go, I knew this person would be very hard to beat. He’s a very eloquent speaker,” Crawford said of running for governor alongside Salazar. “He was very qualified, so I knew it would take just about all I had to overcome him. In the few days I’ve know Mr. Salazar, I’ve found him to be a person of great character and integrity, a person of great leadership skills and intelligence, and all of those qualities led to me picking him as a chief of staff.”

This was not the first time both boys have been overachievers with both having high academic standing and Crawford being a member of the National Honor Society and serving as a New Mexico delegate at the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association conference in July 2015 and Salazar working with the military through the Civil Air Patrol.

At the very most, there are two people from any given high school in New Mexico, but even two from one high school is rare, said Salazar and Crawford, so there is a lot of diversity in the Boys State program.

“You definitely build some good friendships,” Salazar said of the program. “I’ve gotten to know quite a few people really well, people I would be more than happy to continue to maintain relationships with.”

And they owe their new found friendships and government experience all to the American Legion and ENMU, said Crawford, to the point that one of the pieces of legislation having been passed stating that every time one of the members of Boys State sees an American Legion or ENMU official, they are to thank them.

Activities Director Mike Moye said the program had 97 high school boys from across New Mexico.

“I feel like it’s not only given the boys something, but the people who volunteer, especially the police officers, who get to see boys who are not in trouble,” Moye said of the program. “It not only creates leaders, but it guides them in using that knowledge to create efforts to make change in their own communities.”