Daily Kos – In Memoriam

In Memoriam: Ed Mayne – by BlackGriffen

I was a bright high school student, and by the time I had reached my junior year I figured I was going places. I was a good student with decent grades, great test scores, and an Ok record in debate. In order to improve my chances to get into college, I figured going to one of the summer schools run by colleges was just the thing. One in particular caught my eye: this summer school at Georgetown run by the Junior Statesmen of America.

Attendance, of course, is not cheap. So much so that they include a Fundraising Packet with their other informational materials. Naturally, I applied for the scholarship and didn’t get it, so I had to turn to fundraising. Now, IRL I’m a rather shy person, so you can imagine that I’m not very good at asking people for money. I think I may have contacted a dozen people in all. One of my teachers had helped to identify philanthropic individuals in the community to contact, so I had better than zero odds, but none of the people we had brainstormed about I gave any money nor much of a response. At some later point, I figured, “What the Hell, I’ll try a couple of politicians. They should be able to see the value in sending someone to a school like that.” So, I contacted two State Senators. The result was the only donations I got for my efforts: two from Ed Mayne (one from him, personally, and one from the AFL-CIO) and one from Millie Peterson. It is worth noting that I was not one of Ed Mayne’s constituents.

In the end I did get to go, thanks to the generosity of these two and of my parents. (full blog post)

Ed's AFL-CIO office