Dublin Jerome High School student Alison Trianfo wants to be a prosecuting attorney advocating for children's rights when she gets older.
Trianfo will be a senior next year and said it was an honor and a privilege to be one of about 125 students to participate in a question and answer session with Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor and Justices Evelyn Lundberg Stratton, Judith Ann Lanzinger and Yvette McGee Brown during Buckeye Girls State (BGS).
"The program was amazing. I'm so honored to have the opportunity to be able to listen to the justices talk," Trianfo said. "They were very inspiring, and it was nice to see they were real people, too. I mean they've demonstrated such poise and leadership in their positions, and it was great to see that they are people just like us."
Buckeye Girls State is a weeklong program, held at the University of Mount Union in Alliance, that educates girls in good citizenship while helping them learn the mechanics of city, county, and state government through a non-partisan approach.
The justices spoke to the students about the judicial system and how they became Ohio Supreme Court justices. The justices also answered several questions from the girls about the court system, being a women leader and balancing their lives.
"If we can do it, you can do it. You've learned more about us. You know what our stories are and you can see, number one we're ordinary people with ordinary talents and maybe a little extraordinary drive and we happen to be in extraordinary positions," Chief Justice O'Connor told the girls.
BGS is sponsored by the American Legion Auxiliary of Ohio. It's one of the largest Girls States in the nation with around 1,000 students participating each year. This was the first time in the program's history that all of the women on the Supreme Court participated in BGS.
This program was titled "The Power of One" and was modeled on a program the justices participated in last year to celebrate Rosa Parks Day.
