Kevin Butterfield
A Look Back at Former Governor James Moseman Boys’ State Experience
Governor of the 2015 Boys State, James Moseman, used hard work, prior experience, and sheer determination to get him to the top. James has come back to mentor Boys Staters ever since the end of his high school career and he had many interesting stories to tell about his own experience at Boys State.
Mr. Moseman’s desire to run for Governor started long before he even set foot at Boys State. In his hometown he was an active member of the Nebraska Governor’s Youth Advisory Council where he was given the opportunity to travel to Lincoln and consult the Governor of Nebraska on what he thought would make the state better. This made Mr. Moseman have a better understanding on what the Governor was all about and he knew that he had a good chance to run and win for Governor. When he arrived at Boys State, Mr. Moseman was placed into Gettysburg and he had a town to rally behind him with full support for his ambitions to run.
As the campaign got into full swing, Mr. Moseman had quite a bit of fun getting to know everyone at the camp, and getting to argue with other candidates during the debates. The debates were quite formal and even though his opponents did not agree on many things, they were able to, “agree to disagree” and move on without any bad blood. Mr. Moseman had some formidable opponents to beat if he wanted to make it to the top, one of which was Christopher Zenn, who was an Alamo candidate who Moseman knew was well-versed in politics and had a good chance of beating him, but luckily Mr. Zenn was beat out, and James Moseman was able to stay afloat with his hometown supporters.
Mr. Moseman knew how to campaign, and since he was a part of a “Re-Elect the Senator Campaign” that was taking place in his hometown not too long before Boys State, he had fresh experience on making advertisements, and speeches for campaigns and he was more than prepared to utilize his prior knowledge and the knowledge of his supporters to get what he thought was the “winning edge” in his campaign. When the final ballot for the Governor campaign came in and James Moseman was elected as the Governor of Cornhusker Boys State 2015 he was overjoyed. He could not believe that he had accomplished his goal of becoming the leader of the Boys State.
Ever since 2015, Mr. Moseman has been coming back to Boys’ State to support the program through helping with the newspaper team each year. Next year he will be the head supervisor of the newspaper team and is excited to help at Boys State for, “Decades and decades to come.”
James Moseman put in a high amount of effort to get the position that he strived for in Boys State. The main thing that one should take from James’ story is with determination, self-confidence and experience (a tinge of luck wouldn’t hurt either) you can accomplish your goals