NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — U.S. Senator Jerry Moran's Service Academy Selection Board met with Kansas high school students interested in being nominated by the Senator for a slot at one of the service academies on Saturday. The several dozen potential nominees help restore Moran's faith in the future of our country and of Kansas.
"I say this every year, it seems true every year, but we've got a collection here of 50 or 60 young men and women from across Kansas who have a goal. A goal of serving their nation, and a goal of entering one of the academies to accomplish that other goal. You look at their experiences, their grades, their leadership roles they play in school and in life. You've got to be just so impressed. More importantly than that, I only get a snapshot of it, but, the character, the interest in service, the virtue, the morality. We need leaders who have those things. We need them in all places in this country. Certainly, it's to our nation's benefit when there's people of character who decide they want to serve."
Moran's selection board is a group of those who have committed their lives to service, as well, and who took time out of their busy schedules to spend seeing some of Kansas best and brightest burnished to a shine.
"We have men and women from across Kansas," Moran said. "We work at having geographic and other diversity in our selection process and these are people who have raised kids who have gone to the academy, who are academy graduates, so they know the experience, men and women who have served in our military and educators, all with the goal of trying to find the best kids. I don't get to nominate every one of these kids to go to an academy. I want to make sure that it's done...it's not in a biased way, it's not about a political favor. It's not about somebody that I know. It's about, who does this board think is the most deserving and most capable to accomplish a military education and career?"
Moran also sat on the Service Academy Board for two Kansas congressmen in his younger years.
"When I was in college, I was invited to be one of the people that helped then Congressman Sebelius and then Congressman Roberts choose their academy nominees. I've been interviewing young people for a significant chunk of my life."
Each member of Congress, either in the House of Representatives or the Senate, is permitted a total of five appointees in each service academy.