Powell teens talk politics
POWELL — How’d you spend your summer?
Mackenzie Legler, a local teen, took a little time to head to the nation’s Capitol where she worked as a Senate page, and she saw firsthand how our country’s political machine runs.
Legler was part of one of two summer sessions, each about a month long; she attended July’s session after applying through Wyoming U.S. Sen. John Barrasso’s office.
The program is competitive; not every state has a page every year and the program only takes 30 in total, with the goal of having close to an even split of boys and girls.
While in D.C., Legler got to interact with U.S. Sens. Katie Britt, R-Ala., and Corey Booker, D-N.J., who were “very into” the Senate page program, Legler said.
The two senators would “sneak” the pages to meet influential people and hold a lunch they referred to as Britt-Filet, where Britt would purchase Chick-fil-A and answer questions. It was interesting to talk to both senators, hear their perspectives and talk about when legislators should compromise vs. dig their heels in, Legler said.
“I got there pretty much right after the Big Beautiful Bill came through, so people were still very tired from that, because there was a lot going on with that,” she said.
Legler was also in D.C. for the recessions bill and was able to peek behind the scenes of the legislative process.
“It was kind of cool to see while I was there some of those bipartisan conversations going on in the background, like, ‘Hey, we’ll get, you know, this in the bill, if you let us have this in the bill,’ and that kind of thing,” she said. “So that was the biggest thing, I think, that went through when I was there.”
To pass the bill, Vice President JD Vance came in to provide the tiebreaker, and Powell’s young page was able to meet him; he came over to the pages and was “very nice,” Legler said.
“Everyone was kind of jealous, because he talked to me the longest, like, ‘Oh, you’re from Wyoming. I’ve never met anyone from Wyoming,’” she added.
On another occasion, she saw Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the hallways.
And, as nominations were coming through the Legislature, Legler was there to witness that.
Most nominations required three votes, Legler said, the Democrats had “kind of been holding it back and trying to make it a longer process, so there was a lot of that.”
While Legler got a look at the operation of the federal government, a few months prior, Legler’s brother Luke and Powell High student Natalie Black were getting a look under the hood during the Wyoming legislative session, Luke in the Senate and Black in the House.
Success at the state level
Luke had wanted to be involved in politics for some time, and after attending Boys State in the summer of 2024, he was told about the opportunity to become a Senate page for two weeks during the 2025 session.
“I would just like to clarify, I told her it even existed,” Luke joked about his sister’s experience.
He had been told by Sen. Dan Laursen, R-Powell, following his time as a page in the state Senate about the national opportunity.
Luke’s dad helped him get in touch with Laursen, who helped Luke get on the right track to apply. Applications had to be in during the fall, and Luke knew he made the cut by December.
He was one of eight pages in the House and Senate during this year’s session.
“So Wyoming, our [Legislature] did not have quite as big of a nationwide impact, but I was right there during crossover,” Luke said.
There are only eight Democrats in Wyoming’s Legislature, he added, so instead of bipartisan politics he witnessed more intra-party politics, between moderate and more conservative Republicans.
With the Freedom Caucus holding a House majority, their legislation passed quickly through the House, Luke said, which was good in some ways, but there was a general opinion in the Wyoming Senate that the legislation was not quite “top notch.”
“It wasn’t necessarily that they were fighting on the ideas. They were saying, ‘OK, so you got this bill, and it’s a great idea, but half the stuff in here is not written very well,”” Luke said. “That was really the biggest scene otherwise, both bodies were kind of similar. Like, there’s not a formal Freedom Caucus in the Senate, but there’s definitely a portion of the Senate that supports the Freedom Caucus.”
The senators who had the biggest impact on him personally were Laursen and Lynn Hutchings, R-Cheyenne.
“Both were incredibly nice to me, to others; they weren’t the ones who necessarily stood up and debated in front of the entire thing, but you could still tell they were doing stuff behind the scenes, which was very nice to see — they were efficient with what they did,” he said.
Luke wasn’t Powell’s only representation in the state Legislature.
Natalie Black was also present for one week during the legislative session in February, but she was in the House rather than the Senate.
Black found out about the page opportunity later on — her grandfather is Rep. Art Washut, R-Casper — but she emailed the Legislature to see if she would still be able to participate in the program and was allowed in, she said. She had previously been an honorary page as an eighth grader.
While in the House, Black helped the secretaries and distributed papers on the floor.
“I also worked as ‘a pair of feet’ that were allowed to go onto the House floor for lobbyists, passing notes to different legislators,” she added.
Black didn’t realize there was going to be so much paperwork. It was a lot of running around, and she enjoyed it, she said.
“I got to listen in on some really interesting topics as they were debating different bills that they were passing through,” she said.
“They really think hard about the smallest little things. They’ll have a singular amendment and there’s so many different sides,” Black said. “At first glance, it’s like, ‘Why would you ever approve that?’ But after listening to them debate for an hour, you’re like, ‘Oh, OK, that makes sense.’”
Career politicians?
While Black’s interests don’t lie in politics (she’s eyeing a career in registered nursing),she is a self described speech and debate nerd, and she enjoyed listening to the debates, speeches and varying perspectives on issues.
She noticed legislators used humor or memorable sayings to make what they were saying stick.
One legislator spoke on a budget reserved account, the unofficial slogan for the bill then became “Burn the BRA.”
“It was really memorable, like even months later, that’s what I remember,” Black said. “And so being able to come up with something that’ll make people kind of remember what you were talking about a little bit, for sure.”
The Legler siblings aren’t fully committing to a career in politics, but they might be interested down the line, although they differ on what vocation might be needed to get there.
“We’ve got different perspectives on this, so at the state level, there’s a lot of different careers … we had lawyers, we had engineers, we had cattle ranchers … I mean, pretty much everything in between that one has to offer,” Luke said. “So I mean, it wasn’t just lawyers and political science people in this now, whatever it was, it was a little bit of everything, which was really cool to me.”
In the United States Senate, Mackenzie noticed most were lawyers, doctors, engineers or worked in finance (which she’s thought about pursuing in the past).
“I had also thought about when I graduate doing some policy law too, because even politics, like you don’t necessarily have to be a senator to do something great,” Mackenzie said. “And you can kind of work in the background as a legislative clerk, any of those kinds of jobs, and I’ve thought about that too, and just wherever God can use me to make the world better.”
This story was published on August 19, 2025.