5 Oglethorpe County youth get inside look at Georgia's legislative process
Camden Huff
Five Oglethorpe County students had the opportunity to step inside Georgia’s legislative process, serving as pages for members of the Georgia House of Representatives during the 2026 legislative session.
High school students John Adams, Jack Baldwin, Jake Huff and Lincoln Paradise served as pages on Feb. 25, while eighth-grader Camden Huff participated the previous day.
The students assisted State Rep. Trey Rhodes, R-Greensboro, who represents Oglethorpe County as part of District 124, and State Rep. Steven Sainz, R-St. Mary’s, of District 180 during the 23rd and 24th days of the legislative session.
The opportunity was organized by Rachel Baldwin, Jack Baldwin’s grandmother, OCMS principal Mack Baldwin’s mom and a retired educator who has long encouraged students to learn firsthand about state government.
Baldwin worked in Camden County for more than 30 years as a teacher and school apprenticeship director. After partially retiring in 2011, she had more free time and began taking students on trips to the Capitol to be pages, an opportunity she took advantage of as a child.
“Our kids (in Camden County) had no concept of our state capitol, and it would drive me crazy,” Baldwin said. “Your state governance impacts you a lot more quickly than your federal governance. They’re both impactful, but when kids don’t make that connection, they go into adulthood … (and) are not connected to that state governance thing.”
For Baldwin, helping students experience the Capitol is about more than a field trip, it’s about helping young people connect to how government decisions affect their lives.
“What happens in Atlanta does not stay in Atlanta. It ripples out to every community in Georgia,” she said. “And if we don’t teach our young people about being proactive in that process, then we’re just legislated too, and not represented.”
As pages, the students helped deliver notes and messages between representatives on the House floor and their offices.
They also received a behind-the-scenes look at the Capitol and observed lawmakers debate and vote on legislation throughout the day.
The students also had the opportunity to meet several state leaders during the visit. Georgia State Sen. Lee Anderson, R-Grovetown, who represents Oglethorpe County, and State Rep. John Corbett, R-Lake Park, greeted the students and provided an early morning tour of the Capitol building.
“It was cool interacting with all the different state representatives from across the state,” Huff said. “And learning what areas they were from and what they believed and their different political agreements and stuff like that.”
Later in the day, the students joined Speaker Jon Burns, R-Newington, at the rostrum of the House chamber, where they had a chance to strike the gavel.
The page program also gave the students a chance to see how the legislative process works in real time. While their visit came before crossover day, the deadline for bills to pass out of the chamber where they were introduced and move forward, they still observed several votes on legislation.
“They voted for the second time on the increasing of the sales tax and elimination of different other tax areas,” Huff said. “And that one piqued my interest, because we're about to be legal adults, and we're about to have to start paying taxes.”
They also observed the discussion about policy addressing cellphone use in high schools and legislation related to math course instruction.
Beyond the legislative discussions, the experience also changed some of the students’ perceptions of the political environment inside the Capitol.
“I thought first going in there was gonna be all serious, and everybody would be quiet and straightforward,” Paradise said. “But when we first walked in there, we saw everybody shaking their hands and laughing and smiling.”
Paradise said seeing lawmakers interact respectfully despite political differences was eye-opening.
“I thought they would have this tension between each other or hatred,” he said. “But everybody, despite their different political views, was still really nice to each other.”