Sean C. Morgan
Of The New Era
High school senior Ben Schmidt was named Sweet Home Junior First Citizen and joins Hayley Cole this week for the county-level competition. They will join other Linn County junior first citizens in the Veteran’s Day parade in November.
Schmidt, 18, is the son of David Schmidt and the late Valerie Schmidt.
He plays varsity soccer for the Huskies, and recently returned from a year-long trip to Germany as an exchange student.
He is taking advanced placement classes in English, math and other subjects. He maintains a 3.95 GPA and hopes to be in the running for salutatorian.
Schmidt has volunteered with Sweet Home Emergency Ministries and youth soccer. He also considers his exchange student trip as a Congress-Bundestag Youth Ambassador a form of volunteerism, as he represented the United States.
“I was surprised because it’s a really prestigious award to win,” Schmidt said.
The toughest question on the application was what he wanted to do with his future.
He has a list of things he wants to do before he dies, he said. Among them, he wants to “enlist in the Peace Corps, write a book and run a marathon.”
“I enjoy a lot of literature,” Schmidt said. He’d like to write “the next great American novel, memoirs from my travels or something.”
About what sets him apart, he thinks his experience with another culture is important, he said. “I can mesh with different kinds of people really well that I couldn’t before.”
As a first citizen, “I represent maybe a role model for younger kids, and a good example for my peers,” Schmidt said.
Schmidt would like to major in English or political science, Schmidt said. He most likely will attend Lewis and Clark or Whitman.
Schmidt enjoys reading, soccer and hanging out with his friends.
In literature, he especially enjoys Franz Kafka, he said.
“He’s so mysterious and feels like he just draws you into his world.”