Florida Boys State embraces innovation while maintaining tradition

In the midst of its own bicentennial, Tallahassee, Fla., welcomed a gift from a longtime resident of the city.

Every session of Florida American Legion Boys State (FALBS) has taken place in the state’s capital city, and with this year’s session being FALBS’ 80th, it seemed only fitting to find a way to commemorate both milestones.

“We made this banner that everyone could sign,” said FALBS morale officer and former assistant director Bob Knight. The 450-some delegates to FALBS 2024 signed the banner, as did program staff, and Knight, FALBS Director Andy Satterlee, FALBS Marketing and Communications Chair Darcy Bockman-Wright, 2023 FALBS Governor Martin Seals and 2024 delegate Issa Allison — a native of Tallahassee — presented the banner to Tallahassee Mayor John Dailey and the city commission at a June 19 city commission meeting.

“The city of Tallahassee will be hanging it the rest of this year in the chambers of the city commission, which there are no other banners in there. So we’re very honored to be a part of that,” Knight said.

The banner presentation is reflective of the program’s embrace of tradition while also pursuing innovative ways to carry FALBS forward and grow its footprint.

Bockman-Wright’s committee is one of those innovations for the program.

“(Social media) has brought a lot more kids to the table, but we’re also getting a lot more older delegates that have forgotten about the program and realize it’s still going on, and we can use the support,” she said. “With the alumni foundation we’re starting in Florida, it would be great to go ahead and get some of those older delegates.

“If you’re a member of the Florida American Legion Boys State, reach out to us on social media, we’ll get you hooked up with where we are. We need that alumni association throughout the United States to connect and wear those buttons proud and shirts and everything else,” she added.

Satterlee acknowledged “the program has to start developing for the future.” In addition to social media campaigns and promotional videos, volunteer staff are developing apps to streamline the Boys State process.

“There is an app for counselors themselves, that has everything. When the boys get off the bus, we can check them in, we can update anything instantaneously, and we can push our schedule, if a guest speaker comes in we can change things immediately. That’s our next step is to get an app for the boys on the other side,” Satterlee said.

“The real big part is the counselor corps created this. Instead of having to spend money, they donated their time, they donated their wisdom in this, and they’ve created it themselves.”

Knight has also been part of that innovation, starring in the program’s promotional videos.

“We’ve been making them for a couple of years, but last year we took it to a more professional level,” Knight said. “And the reason is, because we realized, and we were told directly, that people never see Boys State unless you’re here at Boys State. You don’t have any idea what it looks like to see these boys sitting in those seats in the legislature. … So we said, let’s show the world.”

With the videos, Knight said the program is trying to reach Legionnaires “so that they know what they’re paying for and so that they’ll send us more boys” and the press.

“The press needs to know these are the leaders of our state, even though they only happen to be 17, 18, they are leaders now. And so wouldn’t you like to know what the leaders of the youth think?” Knight said.

The program is also showing the world what it’s doing through Facebook Live streams of various events during the week, including the election results for state office and the memorial service FALBS holds in the House chambers at the state capitol. This year, the program also used technology to interact with other Boys State programs.

“We reached out to Washington Boys State and we asked to do a livestream with them so that Florida Boys State could say hello. We were able to do that and they were able to stream back to us,” Satterlee said. “Right after that, we had Maryland Boys State do the exact same thing. We were able to get a recording as well to Virginia Boys State.”

Even with the innovations, though, tradition remains a powerful component of the week. As they’ve done every year since FALBS’ first session, troopers from the Florida Highway Patrol volunteer on staff. The governor, Supreme Court and other statewide elected officials take the oath of office at the state capitol just blocks from FALBS’ home on the Florida State University campus.

“Before I swore the officers in, one of the young men asked me how much Boys State has changed since 1982,” said Judge Clay Roberts of the Florida 1st District Court of Appeals, a 1982 FALBS and Boys Nation alum who returns each year to swear in the program’s elected officials. “Remarkably it hasn’t changed very much at all.

“You know, you hear in the news, you hear about young people, how they don’t care about service to their country, they don’t care about service to their state, and you come and see this group of 500 young men and you say, ‘No, there are still young men that are just like the young men that I went through it with in 1982, that are now leaders at all levels in the state and nation.’”