This past winter semester, Trinity Senior Ian Beierle participated in the United States Senate Page Program as a Senate page to Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell. Ian lived on Capitol Hill and attended normal high school classes on top of his work as a Senate page. Beierle describes his work as “help[ing] senators with day-to-day task on the senate floor” which included a variety of different tasks: setting up easels with infographic cards, retrieving water for senators, delivering amendments or legislation to their assigned senator, and more. Beierle was nominated as one of the 30 Senate Pages by Senator McConnell. The application process was described as a long process that included many letters of recommendation and essays until final review and selection was taken by Senator McConnell.
Beierle credits Sister Kathy Cash, a former Trinity academic dean and math teacher as his main motivation for applying. “Sister Kathy was the main influence and inspired me to pursue this. I was on a road trip with her for FBLA Nationals, Future Business Leaders of America Nationals, back in the summer after my sophomore year, and I mentioned that I knew about this program, but I wasn’t gonna do it, and Sister Kathy said that we actually had a Trinity student who did it in the past, and she said it was totally possible, and she’d help me with it in any way she can, or any way she could, and she ended up helping me a lot with the application…”
Beierle thoroughly enjoyed this experience, but he claims it did have its drawbacks, saying “…It’s definitely life-changing. It’s one of the most unique experiences that any high schooler could have in their time in high school. You really get to live on your own and work a full job in the United States Senate, which no high schooler really gets to do. It definitely was very isolating at times because I was really only around people my age that were other pages, and we had 29 other pages in the group, and I didn’t have a phone, so sometimes it could be isolating, and the workload was a lot.”
Beierle says he enjoyed his relationship with Senator McConnell and liked getting to know him. Beierle also claimed that most Senators have a good sense of humor, specifically citing Senator Booker from New Jersey. This is a once in a lifetime experience for not only any individual, but let alone a high school student, and it was experienced by one of Trinity’s very own.
