MacLeish To Be LWV Delegate for Annual Conference

COOPERSTOWN—The League of Women Voters of the Cooperstown Area has announced that Elias MacLeish will be the 2025 delegate to the annual Students Inside Albany conference in Albany. Elias, the son of Padraic and Shelby MacLeish, is a junior at Cooperstown High School and lives Hartwick.

“Congratulations to Elias. The SIA program is a fantastic immersive experience for our area students,” said Kristin Pullyblank, co-president of the LWV of the Cooperstown Area. “Civics education is at the forefront of the League’s mission, and we are fortunate to have been able to send at least one student since the inception of the program in 2001.”

The League of Women Voters of New York State Education Foundation Inc. sponsors one delegate from each League in New York to SIA. The program is designed to increase high-school students’ awareness of their responsibility in representative government and provide information about the tools necessary for meeting that responsibility. This year’s SIA Conference will take place May 18-21 and will bring 40-some students from across the state to Albany.

Students will participate in a series of interactive lectures on topics such as the state budget process, the role of lobbyists in the legislative process, citizen rights to access government information, the role of media in politics, and the move to reform state government. Shadowing their senator and their assemblymember for an afternoon and attending a session on the Chamber floors are two of the highlights of SIA.

At Cooperstown High School, Elias is involved in mock trial, Envirothon, yearbook, cross country, track and field, and Leadership Training for Athletes. He has also been leading a project to restore the LaCava Nature Center.

Elias is interested in pursuing studies that would lead to a career in mining.

“I enjoy learning about how our government works (and doesn’t work),” Elias noted in his application, “[and] the conference would teach me valuable networking and lobbying skills, and…I would be able to translate what I learned into valuable resources and power for my community.”