Arkansas high school seniors to be have been going to Arkansas Boys State in the summer for 80 summers, sponsored by the American Legion. The week long exercise simulates government from city to county to state levels, complete with elections for mayor, governor and senator. Those elected senator then participate in Boys Nation.
There is a famous photograph of a young Bill Clinton as Arkansas' representative to Boys Nation, shaking hands with President John F. Kennedy. Other famous Arkansas Boys State alums include Tom Cotton and John Boozman, but none of the 60,000 attendees since 1940 ever were elected Boys Nation president. That is, until this summer.
Sawyer Ray, who began his senior year at Fayetteville High School yesterday, was elected by his fellow Boys Nation peers this summer. Thursday night, Sawyer will be recognized for his achievement at Shelton Tucker Craft American Legion Post 27 in Fayetteville. Sawyer says he began his Boys State week by getting elected mayor of the fictional town Cantrell City.
Ray: You have simulations of what a mayor would do with his City Council members. And so it's a really good program at engaging high school students with real tactile and tangible simulations of what government can and does look like.
Kellams: What sort of simulations would there be for a mayor?
Ray: So for our mayoral simulation, we worked with our county to make a layout of our city. So we zoned for X, Y and Z commercial and all sorts of stuff. But previous to that, we had to make decisions between like, do we want to have high density zoning or expand the city's borders? Do we want to do X, Y or Z? So there were some, I guess you would consider them tough mayoral decisions, previous to our actual zoning, but that was the activity. And then we would ultimately present that to the directors, and I think they voted on which one they thought was the best. But we never got to know what happened there.
Kellams: It's a week, right? Six days, seven days.
Ray: Yep, yep. You arrive and it pretty much, you get to go on that day. So I want to say we got there on a, I want to say we got there on a Monday. Or maybe it was Saturday, Saturday, Sunday we got there, you know, at the start of the week. And pretty much from that you get, you hit the boots, you know, on the ground, you do your orientation and sit through a couple of guest speakers and then it's straight into like city elections. By the morning of the second day, there are some elections going on.
Kellams: So how do you build a constituency? How do you get elected?
Ray: You know, and that's a funny question because I halfway didn't, I didn't know what Boys State was, you know, about two months before it. And so one of my buddies had come up and talked to me about it. And I said, I don't want to go. But, you know, you arrive there and I didn't have really the intention of running for anything. I was just like, I'm going to go here because it sounds like it's right up my alley.
But pretty quickly on, you realize, or at least I did, that one, kids want to be here, you know, they're not here because, you know, this is something to put on a resume. This is they're from Arkansas. You're not going to be here unless you want to be here to represent Arkansas.
And then secondly, kids don't respond well to transactional like interactions. And I think granted, I'm from Fayetteville and not a lot of Fayetteville people probably have as thick of an accent as I do. But I do think that helped kind of take away some of that transactional feeling because I really relish the opportunity to get to know so many kids.
But that plus the fact that you appeal to what they believe in. You know, a lot of them are from small rural towns. And when you look at the issues in those cities, if you can connect to them on a basis which they've really seen, it's pretty easy, I guess, in some sense to start the ball to roll. And then from that point, it's about continuing this message that you've built around your campaign. But it was really fun first day trying to like not really campaign, but also get to know so many guys.
Kellams: Now after Boys State, there are 50 Boys States, then there's Boys Nation. You went to that?
Ray: Yes, sir.
Kellams: How did that happen?
Ray: Well, in Arkansas is pretty peculiar about it. Or I guess unique would be a better word. Only a couple states elect their senators out of the constituency. Typically, your Boys State programs will nominate. And so it'll be more of a bureaucratic decision. But at Arkansas we had it as an election style.
So based in the party that you were assigned previous to you ever arriving at Boys State, you know you'd be separated by party for the first part. And then you go up there, you would go up and give a speech. And this was totally separate from like all the other elections. So like governor and all that. That was totally different. We had our own little setup for Boys Nation.
You go up and give a speech and then they start to slam it down the base. I want to say at the beginning, there was like 16 or so of us up there because half of them didn't even know what it was. And I, to be honest, I didn't really know what it was. But we go up there and start giving speeches. And this is in front of one of the largest pools of voters you're really going to see until the general election because you're in front of your whole party. So, you know, split half and half. There's about 300 kids you're talking to.
And you go through that and then you make it all the way to the general, which would be two kids from each party. And by that point you're automatically alternates. So you know, that's an accomplishment in and of itself. But then it's a town hall style debate. You give an opening and then you have a couple questions and then a closing.
Kellams: So you then go to Boys Nation, then what happens?
Ray: Then I won president.
Kellams: Did you know when you were going to Boys Nation, okay, I'm going to give this a shot?
Ray: Yeah, you were thinking about it because, yeah, I was the runner up for governor at Arkansas Boys State. And it wasn't that loss that made me be like, oh, yeah, I got to run. But it was, I had so many kids right after we had just given our gubernatorial debate speeches, they came up and were like, man, I believe in you so much. I can't wait to see you, you know, win. And I voted for you.
And it was weird. After they had announced that I, you know, I didn't win. My buddy Roderick had won. It was weird because I didn't feel bad for myself. I felt bad for them because it's like they believed so deeply that we could win.
And so I took that same thought as I was driving back to Fayetteville, I was like, you know, I've been given this amazing opportunity to go to Washington, D.C., and represent the state of Arkansas. And I can't think of any better way to make up for the loss here at Arkansas Boys State than to go out and run for president. And also, you know, you might as well go big. I mean, you might as well try to get the top dog spot. And you know, we went there and did what we could.
Kellams: There have been some notable Arkansans who've gone to Boys State. Bill Clinton went to Boys State, Mike Huckabee went to Boys State. Neither of them was an Arkansan elected president. You're the first.
Ray: Yeah. And I remember, we were able to form a pretty good amount of, or I say form, we were able to find a ton of the kids going to Boys Nation previous to the actual program, just through Instagram or whatnot. So we had like a group chat where we got to know people and I remember they were all like, you know, Arkansas does so good at this thing. They've had a million presidents. So I was under the impression walking in that there was like a legacy to keep up, but I wouldn't be the first.
And then after I'd won the election, I was sitting in the lounge where like I had done all my prep work for the debates and everything. Like this was the lounge in our dorm floor. And I was sitting there and I was like, I should just look it up. And so I look up, has there ever been any Boys Nation presidents from Arkansas? And it said no. And I was like, you guys, y'all lied to me. But oh, I was like, man, I really did something here.
Kellams: You mentioned that you thought it helped get elected at Boys State, that you have a deeper southern accent than a lot of other people in Fayetteville, that it got past the transactional. Southern accents haven't always played well on a national level. Do you think that mattered at all?
Ray: I think at Boys Nation it does now. I think it's a double edged sword because obviously you have the constituents that are like, man, I love the way you talk, but then you have the other people, especially not maybe from a region, but that have a preconceived notion of southern accents as being maybe a little bit less intelligent.
And so I think part of that was what had a lot of the voters undecided, because as my campaign manager, one of my buddies from Maine, he was canvassing the caucus trying to see, you know, what states are we missing? Who is undecided? And, you know, big props to him for going through all that work.
But the big thing that came up, how are you on policy? What do you know? And so that was the big thing that I tried to hammer home during the debate. It's like, not only am I going to be the most personable guy, you know, and I want to know what you want to do with your life and all the good things. I know what I'm talking about and I'm here to lead and represent.
Kellams: You mentioned that when you started to find out what Boys State was, you said it was right up your alley. Why is that? And do you think you'll have a life in public service or policy?
Ray: Yeah, I remember being little, and I remember a lot of things, I guess, but I remember being little. And I would stand in the mirror of like our bathroom. And I would always try to give a speech. And I kid you not. Like it sounds so like, of course, this is what a politician would tell you.
But whether it was, you know, speeches about like something goofy, like extending recess time or as I began to get older, like, you know, student council debates and things of that nature, I've always had a notion that I've been good at public speaking. And people have told me that. You know, I've always taken it with a grain of salt. I was like, you know what? That might be true. It might not, I don't know.
But I've always had a vested interest in history and politics and in the way that we lead and steward ourselves. And so when I learned about what Boys State was, I was like, yep, that's the best opportunity to see if I'm really what I'm about. You know, all those times that I had spent, you know, kind of like forming these arguments and speech patterns and whatnot, like this is an opportunity to go try it out and see what sticks.
Kellams: Congratulations. Thanks for coming in.
Ray: Thank you so much.
Sawyer Ray is a senior at Fayetteville High School, and this summer, he became the first Arkansan ever elected president of Boys Nation. Our conversation was recorded in the Anthony and Susan Hui News Studio yesterday afternoon. He'll speak about and be honored for his achievement at Shelton Tucker Craft American Legion Post 27 in Fayetteville tomorrow night. The evening will include an award presentation honoring his historic election. American Legion Department of Arkansas Commander Allen Edwards will introduce Arkansas Boys State Commission Chairman Len Cotton, who will present the award to Ray.
Ozarks at Large transcripts are created on a rush deadline and edited for length and clarity. Copy editors utilize AI tools to review work. KUAF does not publish content created by AI. Please reach out to kuafinfo@uark.edu to report an issue. The audio version is the authoritative record of KUAF programming.
