Scouting, Volume 48, Number 1, January 1960 Page: 9
32 p. : ill. ; 28 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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City Manager Charles W. Thompson interprets organization chart of Middletown city government to student interns.
rhe little girl seemed lost. Slowly she walked
along the rather forbidding corridor of the City Building,
looking hopefully into each office. Everyone appeared
to be very busy amid a clatter of typewriters and a chat-
ter of voices.
She paused, confused, and spotted a pretty young girl
hurrying out of a door marked "Chief of Police.
Quickly she ran after her. "Lady, lady!"
Seventeen-year-old Sarah Smith turned and smiled.
"Why, hello. Are you looking for someone?"
The child nodded. "1 want to know," she said shyly,
"where you go to get the money daddies pay mommies
after they're divorced."
After Sarah had recovered from her surprise, she took
the little girl's hand. "I don't know," she confessed, "but
we'll soon find out. You just come with me."
Recounting the incident to her parents, Sarah said,
"Honestly, until you work in city government, you can't
imagine how many things city officials actually do! Who
screws new street light bulbs in after they burn out, for
instance? And where do firemen's boots come from?
And who decides if it's O.K. to have a parade? All these
things you never think about—unless," she laughed,
"you happen to be a high school intern!"
City Building rocks and rolls
Sarah, then a vivacious high school senior in Middle-
town, Ohio, is one of numerous students who have
learned about city government through actual experience
as interns. Every afternoon from 3:30 to 5:00 the old
yellow brick City Building is filled with twenty-odd en-
thusiastic boys and girls engaged in every conceivable
activity—from conducting traffic surveys to drafting a
"welcome" pamphlet for new residents of Middletown.
"Frankly, I never thought the kids would help us so
much," admits City Manager Charles Thompson, who
conceived of the program as an educational experiment.
"But the boys and girls aren't content simply to learn;
they want to put their learning to good use."
Make officials' work easier
The city manager's office walls are lined with profes-
sional-looking maps showing all land owned by the city,
recently annexed areas, and street resurfacing work done
each year. Mr. Thompson says, "I'd wanted maps like
these for years. The teen-agers dug in the files, collected
the necessary information, and transferred it to maps.
Now I can't imagine how I got along without them!
Hundreds of such jobs that would make our daily work
far easier must normally be left undone because of more
immediate problems. In these jobs, the interns are in-
valuable."
Doris Kronborg, city commission clerk, agrees. Sandy
and Phyllis Figgins, twin sisters who "never came to the
City Building except to pay the water bill" before the
intern program started, found themselves working out a
master application form for the myriad licenses issued
by Miss Kronborg, and streamlining her system of filing
ordinances. "When completed, the new system will speed
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Boy Scouts of America. Scouting, Volume 48, Number 1, January 1960, periodical, January 1960; New Brunswick, New Jersey. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth329283/m1/11/: accessed April 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Boy Scouts of America National Scouting Museum.