Local students place votes on energy bill in D.C.
Lead Summary
By
Caitlin Forsha-crforsha@gmail.com
Networking with some of the country’s top legislators, placing votes on the House Chamber floor for an energy bill and attending lobbyist meetings for a cause they support was all in a day’s work for two Leesburg residents, who traveled to the nation’s capital as part of their busy schedules … as elementary school students.
Otis, 9, and Lyla, 6, spent three days in Washington D.C. with their parents Tate and Corey Cockerill at the end of September as part of a group of Wilmington College agriculture students and professors to lobby for pollinator conservation. Corey, their mother, is a professor at the college.
Lyla said the group spoke to several groups and politicians about the need for habitats for pollinators.
“They’re starting to go extinct,” Lyla said. “That would make them not have food, stuff we need for pollen.”
They also met with the American Farm Bureau Federation and the Sierra Club, Otis said.
“They knew about the pollinators, and there have been some bills on pollinators,” Otis said. “In Hawaii, a bill passed for some sort of bumblebee.”
Otis said the group met with two representatives: Steve Stivers, who represents the 15th District of Ohio; and Bob Gibbs, who represents Ohio’s Seventh District. Meeting the congressmen was an educational experience for him.
“It helped me in social studies,” Otis said.
After meeting the Cockerill children, Rep. Stivers invited them to the House Chamber floor. With short notice, friends and family were alerted to tune in to C-SPAN to watch Otis and Lyla, who turned in votes for an energy bill for not only Stivers, but several other representatives.
“While they were down there, representatives would say, ‘do you want to place my vote, too?’” Corey said.
Otis and Lyla turned in votes for HR5303, the Water Resources Development Act of 2016, which “revises or authorizes various U.S. Army Corps of Engineers water resources development projects, feasibility studies and relationships with nonfederal project sponsors,” according to www.congress.gov.
“I turned in votes for one [representative] from California, one from Maine and one from New Jersey,” Otis said.
Lyla explained the voting process.
“We had to walk around and ask people and take their cards and put them in this machine,” Lyla said. “They would tell us which button to choose. Mostly, they were ‘yes’ [votes].”
Lyla had to place one paper vote.
“If they forget their card, there’s a piece of paper that they fill out, and then they put that in the machine and it still works,” Otis said.
Lyla said that she thought voting was “cool,” but Otis was nervous.
“If I said something wrong, all the people would be staring at me,” Otis said.
When Otis and Lyla returned after about 45 minutes, their mother asked what they talked about with the representatives, to which Otis responded, “Fantasy football.”
“I told Steve Stivers, ‘Don’t go with Carson Palmer,’” Otis said.
Lyla said that she talked with the representatives about how and where they worked, including their different offices.
“Some have lots of offices,” Lyla said. “The representative that we were with, Steve Stivers, he has a Wilmington College one, one in D.C. and other ones.”
In addition to visiting the chamber, they also enjoyed eating ice cream with the representatives.
“We got to have free ice cream,” Lyla said. “The meeting room is sort of like a place where they get to have pop and snacks.”
Otis said that most of the representatives were standing or moving around to talk to one another in the break area.
“Some were just talking,” Otis said. “If you talk, it bounces off the walls, and there’s so many people and they’re all talking at once. It sounded like organized chaos.”
Otis said the chamber floor was chaotic, too.
“There are 435 representatives, so there’s way too many people in one room,” Otis said.
Otis and Lyla said that while placing votes, they had the opportunity to meet Speaker of the House Paul Ryan.
“He just shook our hands, and he said ‘it’s nice to see you,’” Otis said.
They also networked with several congressmen, shaking hands and collecting business cards.
“There was a representative that gave us his card, that had his phone number on it, so we can call him anytime,” Lyla said.
Otis and Lyla also took turns sitting at Stivers’ desk, in what Otis called “the big chair.” The Cockerills said that the offices all keep C-SPAN on their televisions to give the congressmen an idea of when they need to run to place their vote, and Otis said Stivers also has a clock with a light that flashes when it’s time to vote.
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Although he complained that there are “too many statues” in Washington D.C., Otis enjoyed visiting some of them, including the newly unveiled Thomas Edison statue at the US Capitol.
“There are a lot of statues,” Otis said. “One brand-new one was of Thomas Edison. They had just got it a week ago, and he was holding a five-foot-tall bronze lightbulb.
“We also went to the Lincoln Memorial, and I said, ‘can I sit in his lap?’ But there were too many guards.”
They also walked by the White House, although Otis was disappointed that he didn’t get to see President Barack Obama.
“There were a whole bunch of snipers on the roof of the White House,” Otis said. “It’s crazy. There’s no way you’re getting into the White House.
“I asked Steve Stivers if Obama ever comes into the House, and he said not normally, but sometimes. I wish he came when we were there.”
Otis said he talked to a guard outside the White House.
“I talked to him and said ‘is it fun being in the Secret Service?’” Otis said. “He said, ‘yeah, it’s kind of fun, but there’s a lot of paperwork.’”
Lyla said that she enjoyed visiting a souvenir shop with “cool stuff,” where she looked at replica scrolls of the Declaration of Independence. Her favorite part of the trip was walking at the National Mall.
“My favorite part would have to be when we walked down this creek,” Lyla said. “We got to see ducks, and it was about the best part that we had there because I got to watch my brother throw rocks at them, and I got to see fish in the pond. But I didn’t like the part where he threw the rocks. They had different kind of rocks that were really cool, and I even took some. They had quartz.”
Lyla also liked visiting the US Department of Agriculture, where they ate in the cafeteria.
“They’ve got everything there,” Otis said. “I just ate everything.”
The group was also in Washington D.C. for the first presidential debate, which they watched in a restaurant.
“We were going in this place to watch the debate, and we saw this person that was dressed up like Donald Trump,” Lyla said.
Otis was amused by the experience, but Lyla was less than thrilled.
“You can’t even hear it,” Otis said. “Everybody’s talking and screaming. You could tell they were all Democrats because every time Donald Trump messed up, they all went crazy laughing.”
“I had to lay on two people and close my ears,” Lyla said. “It was loud to me.”
The Cockerill children both attend Fairfield Elementary, where Otis is in Mrs. Hooper’s fourth-grade class and Lyla is in Mrs. Ayres’ first-grade class. Both of them discussed the trip with their classmates and teachers when they returned.
“I was like ‘hey, did you see me on TV?’” Otis said. “My teacher was like, ‘well, it’s good that you learned some stuff,’ and I said ‘yeah, I totally learned stuff.’”
Lyla said that she gave a presentation to inform her classmates about her trip.
“I got to show photos, and I got to show my Declaration of Independence scroll to my class,” Lyla said.
Otis also tried to honor Stivers when he picked a basketball jersey after returning from the trip.
“He has all these basketball jerseys in his office,” Otis said. “One was from Ohio University, and it had the number 15 because he’s the representative from the 15th district. Then he had one from Ohio State and one from Wilmington College, and they were all the number 15. That’s why, when we went to basketball tryouts, I wanted to choose a basketball jersey that was number 15 … but I got number 11.”
As this was the first trip to the nation’s capital for Otis and Lyla, they said they enjoyed the experience and meeting new people. Lyla said she’d like to go back to Washington D.C., while Otis said he’d be interested in returning … “for a job.”
Otis, 9, and Lyla, 6, spent three days in Washington D.C. with their parents Tate and Corey Cockerill at the end of September as part of a group of Wilmington College agriculture students and professors to lobby for pollinator conservation. Corey, their mother, is a professor at the college.
Lyla said the group spoke to several groups and politicians about the need for habitats for pollinators.
“They’re starting to go extinct,” Lyla said. “That would make them not have food, stuff we need for pollen.”
They also met with the American Farm Bureau Federation and the Sierra Club, Otis said.
“They knew about the pollinators, and there have been some bills on pollinators,” Otis said. “In Hawaii, a bill passed for some sort of bumblebee.”
Otis said the group met with two representatives: Steve Stivers, who represents the 15th District of Ohio; and Bob Gibbs, who represents Ohio’s Seventh District. Meeting the congressmen was an educational experience for him.
“It helped me in social studies,” Otis said.
After meeting the Cockerill children, Rep. Stivers invited them to the House Chamber floor. With short notice, friends and family were alerted to tune in to C-SPAN to watch Otis and Lyla, who turned in votes for an energy bill for not only Stivers, but several other representatives.
“While they were down there, representatives would say, ‘do you want to place my vote, too?’” Corey said.
Otis and Lyla turned in votes for HR5303, the Water Resources Development Act of 2016, which “revises or authorizes various U.S. Army Corps of Engineers water resources development projects, feasibility studies and relationships with nonfederal project sponsors,” according to www.congress.gov.
“I turned in votes for one [representative] from California, one from Maine and one from New Jersey,” Otis said.
Lyla explained the voting process.
“We had to walk around and ask people and take their cards and put them in this machine,” Lyla said. “They would tell us which button to choose. Mostly, they were ‘yes’ [votes].”
Lyla had to place one paper vote.
“If they forget their card, there’s a piece of paper that they fill out, and then they put that in the machine and it still works,” Otis said.
Lyla said that she thought voting was “cool,” but Otis was nervous.
“If I said something wrong, all the people would be staring at me,” Otis said.
When Otis and Lyla returned after about 45 minutes, their mother asked what they talked about with the representatives, to which Otis responded, “Fantasy football.”
“I told Steve Stivers, ‘Don’t go with Carson Palmer,’” Otis said.
Lyla said that she talked with the representatives about how and where they worked, including their different offices.
“Some have lots of offices,” Lyla said. “The representative that we were with, Steve Stivers, he has a Wilmington College one, one in D.C. and other ones.”
In addition to visiting the chamber, they also enjoyed eating ice cream with the representatives.
“We got to have free ice cream,” Lyla said. “The meeting room is sort of like a place where they get to have pop and snacks.”
Otis said that most of the representatives were standing or moving around to talk to one another in the break area.
“Some were just talking,” Otis said. “If you talk, it bounces off the walls, and there’s so many people and they’re all talking at once. It sounded like organized chaos.”
Otis said the chamber floor was chaotic, too.
“There are 435 representatives, so there’s way too many people in one room,” Otis said.
Otis and Lyla said that while placing votes, they had the opportunity to meet Speaker of the House Paul Ryan.
“He just shook our hands, and he said ‘it’s nice to see you,’” Otis said.
They also networked with several congressmen, shaking hands and collecting business cards.
“There was a representative that gave us his card, that had his phone number on it, so we can call him anytime,” Lyla said.
Otis and Lyla also took turns sitting at Stivers’ desk, in what Otis called “the big chair.” The Cockerills said that the offices all keep C-SPAN on their televisions to give the congressmen an idea of when they need to run to place their vote, and Otis said Stivers also has a clock with a light that flashes when it’s time to vote.
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Although he complained that there are “too many statues” in Washington D.C., Otis enjoyed visiting some of them, including the newly unveiled Thomas Edison statue at the US Capitol.
“There are a lot of statues,” Otis said. “One brand-new one was of Thomas Edison. They had just got it a week ago, and he was holding a five-foot-tall bronze lightbulb.
“We also went to the Lincoln Memorial, and I said, ‘can I sit in his lap?’ But there were too many guards.”
They also walked by the White House, although Otis was disappointed that he didn’t get to see President Barack Obama.
“There were a whole bunch of snipers on the roof of the White House,” Otis said. “It’s crazy. There’s no way you’re getting into the White House.
“I asked Steve Stivers if Obama ever comes into the House, and he said not normally, but sometimes. I wish he came when we were there.”
Otis said he talked to a guard outside the White House.
“I talked to him and said ‘is it fun being in the Secret Service?’” Otis said. “He said, ‘yeah, it’s kind of fun, but there’s a lot of paperwork.’”
Lyla said that she enjoyed visiting a souvenir shop with “cool stuff,” where she looked at replica scrolls of the Declaration of Independence. Her favorite part of the trip was walking at the National Mall.
“My favorite part would have to be when we walked down this creek,” Lyla said. “We got to see ducks, and it was about the best part that we had there because I got to watch my brother throw rocks at them, and I got to see fish in the pond. But I didn’t like the part where he threw the rocks. They had different kind of rocks that were really cool, and I even took some. They had quartz.”
Lyla also liked visiting the US Department of Agriculture, where they ate in the cafeteria.
“They’ve got everything there,” Otis said. “I just ate everything.”
The group was also in Washington D.C. for the first presidential debate, which they watched in a restaurant.
“We were going in this place to watch the debate, and we saw this person that was dressed up like Donald Trump,” Lyla said.
Otis was amused by the experience, but Lyla was less than thrilled.
“You can’t even hear it,” Otis said. “Everybody’s talking and screaming. You could tell they were all Democrats because every time Donald Trump messed up, they all went crazy laughing.”
“I had to lay on two people and close my ears,” Lyla said. “It was loud to me.”
The Cockerill children both attend Fairfield Elementary, where Otis is in Mrs. Hooper’s fourth-grade class and Lyla is in Mrs. Ayres’ first-grade class. Both of them discussed the trip with their classmates and teachers when they returned.
“I was like ‘hey, did you see me on TV?’” Otis said. “My teacher was like, ‘well, it’s good that you learned some stuff,’ and I said ‘yeah, I totally learned stuff.’”
Lyla said that she gave a presentation to inform her classmates about her trip.
“I got to show photos, and I got to show my Declaration of Independence scroll to my class,” Lyla said.
Otis also tried to honor Stivers when he picked a basketball jersey after returning from the trip.
“He has all these basketball jerseys in his office,” Otis said. “One was from Ohio University, and it had the number 15 because he’s the representative from the 15th district. Then he had one from Ohio State and one from Wilmington College, and they were all the number 15. That’s why, when we went to basketball tryouts, I wanted to choose a basketball jersey that was number 15 … but I got number 11.”
As this was the first trip to the nation’s capital for Otis and Lyla, they said they enjoyed the experience and meeting new people. Lyla said she’d like to go back to Washington D.C., while Otis said he’d be interested in returning … “for a job.”