One day I had a vision to create a youth-centered organization to bring the youth from all over to learn about local city government. On February 12, 2026, I founded the Mayor’s Youth Council for the city of Langston.
I based this organization on one from the previous city I lived in, Horn Lake, Mississippi, which is a small town in north Mississippi. The purpose of this council was to strengthen the youth in Mississippi and showing them how city and state government worked. The youth Council was constructed on a high school level and was run by 15-20 students from Horn Lake High School, where I attended.
Some of the community events we did were working with animal shelters, working at the local fire station, and working at the local libraries reading books to the children.
I was the first ever person on the council to take on a state level role as a pager for the house of representatives during their legislative session. That introduced me to government. During the process of being at the State Capital for a week I got to meet with Lieutenant Governor Delbert Hoseman. During this process we discussed business regarding state polices at the time and bills that were being passed during that session.
I ended up in the state and city newspaper as the first ever high school junior pager for the house of representatives.
The vision for a Langston Mayor’s Youth Council came alive to me while walking into the library with my Horn Lake Youth Council jacket on. The Langston Mayor, Misty Mayes, saw me there. “I asked him, how can I get a youth council for me?,” Mayes said. “And so my vision was finding young people who wanted to work for the city, as far as community service, and trying to get things done that just one person wouldn’t be able to do.”
Mayes believes that youth leadership is important, going back to the way the town raised the money to estalbish the university in the 1890’s. “Growing up, a lot of older people were in seats, and I don’t feel like they taught the younger people how to be a leader. The examples weren’t always kind and ready for a person to like, that’s what I want to do when I grow up. So I feel like my importance of having a youth council is for the youth to be able to see what it is to be a leader and show them how to lead a town,” Mayes said.
This council was put together to strengthen the student body and to teach students at the high school and college level about government, “and creating positive, measurable change that improves the quality of life for all residents.” So far, the group has organized a successful trash pickup with 30 students.
For more information, please visit our Instagram page @langstonmyc.
Christian Macklin
Christian Macklin is a rising sophomore broadcast Journalism major from Memphis Tennessee with a minor in psychology. Chrisitan is a first-generation college student; Christian will be the first in his family to graduate college from Langston University. Christian chose to write for the Gazette to be a voice of reason and to hear students’ stories, because nobody tells their story better than themselves. Christian believes that working for the Gazette will help him grow the necessary people skills and writing skills to be a journalist. The work Christian does for the Gazette is his passion to help grow the journalism industry. Hobbies Christian enjoys doing outside of journalism include reading, traveling, shopping, eating, watching movies, helping the community and spending time with family. Christian can be reached at his Instagram langston_man28 or his student email: chmackl@okstate.edu
