Mayor For A Day Essay - 2024 Winners

The City of Wyoming selected three winners and presented them with their Mayor for a Day certificate at our January 21, 2025 City Council meeting. The winning essays may be viewed below:
 

Jocelyn Walsh - 6th Grade

Hi, my name is Jocelyn Walsh and I'm in sixth grade. I live in Wyoming, Minnesota with my mom, older sister, and pet cat. I'm 11 years old, going on 12 in January, and I am very excited to be doing this. In my opinion, there's a few things I would like to improve, like the library. I recently met Francie, the Wyoming librarian, and she told me she wanted to add a larger young adult section and a book club for young teens. I was happy to hear this as I've been wanting to start a book club at my school for a long time. If I were Mayor, I would look at the budget and see how we could expand the library and extend the hours. My eighth grade sister likes to study at the library but sometimes cannot because it is closed.

Just to let you know, I agree with the Downtown Master Plan, but there's a few things I would like to add. I think the Wyoming Library should get an expansion, and add hours. I would also add that there should be an organized volunteer group once a month to pick up trash in Wyoming, because I've noticed a lot of trash and plastic bags on walks, on the bus, and in the car. I think it's very important to have a clean environment for the safety of animals.

A third thing is that, as Mayor, I would like to make our roads safer for bikers and pedestrians. When I bike to get something from Bruce's Foods I'm always on a very busy and dangerous intersection, especially for somewhere I go a lot. I was thinking maybe add a cross signal on Wyoming Trail and Fenwick Ave, one at 264th and Forest Boulevard/Highway 61, and safer crossings at East Viking and Forest Boulevard.

In conclusion, I have a couple things I'd like to change, so please think about my reasons. I would be very grateful for the opportunity to be Mayor for a Day, and learn more about what they do and how they help our community. Thank You!

 

Keira Dickover - 6th Grade

If I was mayor for a day I would give police and firefighters an appreciation day to show appreciation for all the work they do to help our town stay safe. I would start fundraisers for parades and activity centers. So people could have fun in the town anytime. You could go play games and do sports all in one place that's close.

How you could show appreciation to police and firefighters is by having schools write letters to them telling them how much they appreciate the police and firefighters helping their town. The police and firefighters will be happy to see that the kids look up to them which might make their days. They deserve it for all the work they do, and how much they help us.

I think doing fundraisers for parades are good for showing the parades for some fun activity and for kids to watch. It will be good for jobs so they can promote their businesses by entering a float. This is a good reason to have more parades in our town, and they are just fun to watch.

I think an activity center would be good for kids and even adults if they get bored. It would have a basketball court, a game room with games and other fun stuff. It could have a movie room and even a playground. People could hang out with people their age and they won't be judged with a lot of fun activities to do.

I hope you think these are good and to get taken into consideration. Like an appreciation day for the police and firefighters who work hard. A fundraiser for a parade and fun activity center for more things to do in the town.

 

Gabriella Yang - 6th Grade

Do you ever wonder about if you were mayor for a day? Well, I do too but today is my day to be mayor for a day. As mayor for a day, I would focus on street maintenance, community service, and the well-being of people who don’t have homes or have gone through traumatic events in their life. I would work to fix those three things in our community.

Street maintenance is important. I would fix all the potholes in the roads. I would fix it because people could get into serious situations or have car crashes and have major trauma from it and it can cause people to blame themselves for the crash when they didn’t do it when the road was in ruin and had many cracks and potholes in the road. I make sure the streets are clean and the street lights work.

I also want to work on community service. Some people are feeling that they are doing too little or not enough for their community. I would encourage volunteering to help people who need it the most.

I would also make programs to help the wellbeing of others. Many people don’t have money, new clothes to wear, and can’t buy food for their family and I want to change that. I would make housing affordable and food for everyone.

I would make therapy and counseling available to help people deal with traumatic events and their mental health. Therapy would be free for everyone, this would help them cope with their feelings and be better people for the world.

Those are the three things in our community that I would like to change or fix and make our society better and that’s I would do if I was mayor for the day.