Hazard student says Senate Page experience made lawmakers feel human

Holliday came back to Hazard with a rare view of how Congress really works after spending the spring semester on Capitol Hill as a United States Senate Page. For a Perry County student, the experience put Washington, D.C., inside reach and showed how a local young person can step into one of the most selective student programs in the country.

Holliday said the biggest lesson was simple but powerful: lawmakers are not distant figures sealed off from everyday life. They are regular people doing demanding work, and that perspective matters in Perry County, where decisions in Frankfort and Washington can quickly ripple into school funding, disaster recovery and job creation. In a county still shaped by the 2022 eastern Kentucky floods, that kind of firsthand civics lesson carries more weight than a textbook chapter.

The Senate Page Program has offered that opportunity since 1829. The program places students on Capitol Hill to work and study while they continue their academic coursework through the United States Senate Page School, which is designed to complement home studies. The school is housed in the Daniel Webster Senate Page Residence on Capitol Hill, a building that opened in June 1995 after the program was moved from the Library of Congress. The page program was suspended on March 13, 2020, for the first time in its 191-year history because of COVID-19, then resumed on September 13, 2022.

Eligibility makes the chance even more notable for a Hazard student. Semester pages must be U.S. citizens or permanent residents with a Social Security number, have junior standing, and be 16 or 17 years old on or before the date of appointment. With the U.S. House page program ending on Aug. 8, 2011, the Senate route remains one of the only congressional page pathways still open to students.

The experience fits Perry County Schools’ own vision of preparing students to be post-secondary ready, community leaders and innovative thinkers. It also speaks to the damage Perry County endured in the 2022 floods, when then-Superintendent Jonathan Jett said several buildings were damaged and nearly 200 students were likely displaced. Against that backdrop, Holliday’s semester in Washington offered more than a personal milestone. It showed students in Hazard, Vicco, Buckhorn and Chavies that a path to national public service is open, and that a single semester on Capitol Hill can change how a young person sees government, opportunity and the future.