Although Hernando, Mississippi, started small, it has slowly grown in population, getting bigger and bigger, but somehow not losing that small-town feel. Some might be able to credit the Mayor’s Youth Council (MYC), a dedicated group of young individuals who shadow the mayor, engage in community service, and learn about government roles. This group of highly involved high schoolers is led by Mayor Chip Johnson and his executive assistant, Scott Smith. This organization allows applications in the fall and has regular meetings twice a month.
To get more insight into this organization, Smith discussed how the Mayor’s Youth Council first started. “The mayor’s youth council is loosely affiliated with the Mississippi Municipal League,” Smith said. “They saw a need in each of our cities to interact with the youth and help them learn leadership skills,” he continued.
The Mississippi Municipal League, who “spearheaded” this organization, is a non-profit private organization of cities and towns in Mississippi. Its purpose is to provide training and educational opportunities for elected officials. Smith describes this organization as a way to help Hernando High School students develop knowledge of the municipal government, as well as leadership skills and providing service to the community.
“We just welcome any student here and we hope that they will come and learn about government and Hernando, try to be involved with the community, learn valuable leadership skills that they can use in life, and gain service hours while helping to make our city a better place,” Smith told The Golden Report. He emphasized that some Mayor’s Youth councils limit the number of members based on GPA or if they are juniors or seniors; however, that’s not Hernando’s policy. This policy led to increasing numbers over the years, and the current council sits at around one hundred members.
Since the council expanded, they have been able to commit more time to serving the community in events like the Water Tower 10k, The Dickens of a Christmas, Challenger Soccer, Cookies with Santa, and a variety of other things.
The first event the Mayor’s Youth Council participates in each year is the annual Hernando Water Tower 10k. This race was started to gain funding for the Hernando Excel by 5’s Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. This organization has the goal of improving early childhood education by making sure kids have access to age-appropriate books. During the race, MYC members volunteered to hold up motivational signs and pass out medals to the winners at the end of the race.
During November, MYC members volunteer at the Dickens of a Christmas. This event is a charming Christmas market with live performances, carriage rides, and engaging activities. MYC helped the city of Hernando by setting up and taking down the event. They also help give directions to certain attractions and dress up in Victorian-era outfits to celebrate the art and culture of old-time Hernando.
One of the more heartwarming events MYC volunteers at is Challenger Soccer. This program is designed to adhere to children with special needs and introduce them to soccer through fun games and scrimmage opportunities. During the event, volunteers, or better known as “buddies”, are paired with players to help motivate them and help the kids play if needed.
With all of these events and members, MYC has racked up quite the number of service hours. “This year, we’re proud to boast that as we totaled the number of service hours by all the students combined, it was over 700 service hours,” Smith stated. “our mayor is even saying that a lot of other cities in the state of Mississippi, particularly after this past youth council, are noticing Hernando and noticing the quality of our youth council.”
MYC members with over twenty individual service hours were rewarded with an invitation to the Youth Summit. This event is sponsored by the Mississippi Municipal League and brings together Mayor’s Youth Counsels from all across Mississippi for a weekend event. During this event, students take classes, tour a college campus, and meet other students just like them.
The 2025 Youth Summit was held in Hattiesburg at Southern Miss. The location of this college allowed for Hernando’s MYC to stop at the state’s capitol for an extensive tour.
Speaking highly of this event, Smith recounts, “The hotel was amazing. It really kind of blew me away. Some of our students decided to pile in the elevator and shut it down and I did catch a quite bit of flack from the front desk but I was okay with that.”
As the 2025 Youth Summit came to a close, the last event commenced. Smith explained that the last event, which is a tech media-based trivia, “is pretty intense, and I’m very competitive, and every year I feel like we probably should have won, but we didn’t. You know how that goes.” Smith continued, “Well, this year, we just had so many excellent students and we won! I couldn’t refrain from just yelling with joy, I felt like I won a national Championship or something.” After closing with a win like that, Smith stated, “Im very proud of the group and we just had a great trip.”
After all of this the Golden Report questioned Smith on why he would encourage people to join. Smith responded, ” I would recommend someone to join if they’ve got an interest in learning about the way the city of Hernando runs from all the different departments to the government and so forth. Also if they just wanted to learn leadership skills.”
Following this, Smith explained how, due to the wide variety of students in the organization, the MYC brings all of these different grade levels and different types of students together, which models what they are trying to do.
The Hernando Mayors Youth Council strives to create a ” community where everybody’s welcome, everybody’s important, and everybody contributes to the whole”. With that, the only question left unanswered is if you will be picking up an application this upcoming fall.
Thank you to https://www.cityofhernando.org/departments/community-development/mayor-s-youth-council for providing vital details on city sponsored event.
