Get to Know Your Governor

By Lily Wobbe

This morning, the Media Corps had the opportunity to interview KYA 1 Governor Parker Stewart in a press conference. Our media representative asked the governor several questions about his experience as a Presiding Officer and what enjoyed most about KYA. Here are some questions and answers to help you get to know your governor better. The full press conference can be found on our Instagram, @kyymcamedia.

Media Corps: With your platforms, what have you done to elaborate on them and make a change in Kentucky?

Governor: I’ll address the coal one first. I’m really a big fan of transitioning coal miners and renewable energy jobs. One activity that I’ve been involved with at my school is I wanted to decrease my school’s carbon footprint, so I went to my AP environmental science teacher and said hey, I want to try to make a plan to get solar panels on our school. And she’s like, all right, people have tried but we’ll see what happens. So I put together a presentation and presented it to the Board and administration, and we ended up with 20 solar panels, and then some of the parents liked the idea. We ended up raising $100,000 more, and now we have 120 solar panels. We’ve cut the building’s carbon footprint about the fourth and almost into half, so that’s really awesome to see.

And of course for the Black Lives Matter movement, you have the blackout Tuesday, but I think you can do a lot more than that and just try to give people as many resources as possible. Sure, you can sign the surveys and post the black pictures on Instagram, but it’s not gonna make a real change in the end. It’s not going to happen in six months, we’re not going to completely fix these systemic problems, but just trying to educate as many people as possible on the issues and bringing light to them will over time, make the biggest change. Also, making actual legislation is important, because you can talk about it as much as you want, you can have a social revolution, but at the end of the day, you still have to have a legislative one, because without the laws in place to really set this into stone, it can be overturned very easily. Instead of trying to ensure that actual laws are passed for these kinds of protections and equality, I’m making that a real priority of mine and advocating for those with my friends on social media, and here, of course, as part of my governorship.

Media Corps: What do you plan to do with the experience you have gained during your time as a governor, as well as your time at KYA?

Governor: This year is so much different. I’m trying to feel out the role of what a virtual governor looks like, because I can’t be on the floor shaking hands and meeting everybody. I’ve been trying to listen to as many people as possible and trying to meet people even over this virtual conference, and just trying to build morale that we can still have at KYA, even though we’re on a screen. My main goal for this conference is to make it feel like a regular conference, not make it feel like a virtual KYA, but just to be like, oh, I have regular KYA, not like, oh, I have to go to virtual KYA, if that makes sense.

I definitely eventually want to go into politics in one form or another, so I’m trying to use all the experiences that I have here, whether it be how to network with people, how to advocate for legislation, how to pick apart legislation at times. The leadership role is also really important — public speaking, it’s all going to play into a bigger picture. I’m not really exactly sure what that is yet, I don’t have my life figured out, but hopefully I’ll go into the political arena. The Y has definitely been crucial in my development.

Media Corps: If you could encourage younger Parker to accomplish anything, what would you tell him?

Governor: If you assume that you can do anything you’ll be amazed at what you actually accomplish. So I was gonna go back to younger Parker, I would just say the limits that you put on yourself are the only limits that you have. So when you take that top off, you can do whatever you want. I think the Y has really shown me that if you put in the effort and you put in the time and you just assume that you can do this, then, I mean, I never thought I’d be here, but I went ahead and ran with it. I was like, we’ll see what happens.

Media Corps: If you could encourage people to run for Presiding Officer, what would you say? What would you encourage them to do?

Governor: Even if I didn’t win, I would encourage people just as much, because it’s one of the best experiences. Meeting everybody, especially my fellow candidates, we bonded as candidates so much. I remember we were sitting next to the gaga ball pit, because we didn’t want to campaign anymore. We were so tired but we were having so much fun, and if we all sat in a circle together, none of us could campaign. It’s memories like those that I’ll never forget, even when I’m 80 years old, looking back on it. When I think about the Y, those are the experiences that I have, going from committee to committee to speak on bills and getting out of my comfort zone. It’s incredible. Then after, I felt fearless. I just spoke in front of so many people. I did all this stuff that I’m not comfortable with at all, but after doing it for three days straight. It felt normal, almost, at the end. You just grow so much as a person in three days. It’s incredible.