Can the Hartford Select Board members each get a theme song?,” the board’s newest member tweeted March 18, a few days after being sworn in. “And can mine be ***Flawless by @Beyonce?! #TheReal #LeslieKnope.”
This is hardly the usual stuff of municipal governance in Vermont, and Becca White is hardly the usual officeholder. At age 20, she is the town’s youngest Selectboard member in recent memory, and almost certainly the only one capable of pulling off references to Beyonce and the TV show Parks and Recreation in a single tweet.
White’s election this spring was by no means the first sign of a precocious youth: She graduated from Hartford High School at age 16 and from the University of Vermont this spring. She’s had a postgraduate job as a solar organizer lined up for months, the latest in a long line of civic-minded and service-driven positions that started when she earned a gig at Kendal at Hanover at age 14.
Youth has not always served her well. She had to wait for her 15th birthday to start working because of labor laws. Later, when her college debate team traveled to Canada, they needed her parents’ permission to transport a minor across the border.
“There were so many times when my age, no one would ask,” White said, “and it would just come up organically and people would just be completely shocked.”
Sometimes the reaction would irk her, but as she’s grown older, “I take it more as a compliment when people are surprised,” she said, “rather than a (feeling) of, ‘I need to be defensive.’ ”
White’s civic engagement is shaped by her upbringing. She’s the daughter of a “diehard-liberal-hippie, power-to-the-people feminist” mom and a “staunch conservative Republican” dad. Divorced for a decade, her parents live on different floors of their Wilder home, which White returned to last fall while working for a small business advocacy group for college credit.
White calls the living arrangement “probably the most like a sitcom that you could find,” but says it’s helped define her.
“I don’t think that I could be where I am now without having parents who argued any less, having them have those debates and just be so divided,” she said. “I would say they deeply care about each other, and even at their worst, there’s a real sense of respect, which is something that really drove me to enter the civic world.”
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Becca White
Age: 20
Hometown: Hartford (Wilder)
Current town: Hartford (Wilder)
Where were you five years ago? About to be a senior in high school. “That was right on the point when I started to feel more defensive (when people were surprised by my age). It wasn’t really until I got to college when even the people who were supposed to be my age group were older.”
Where do you see yourself in five years? Living in Wilder. Continuing on the Selectboard and in an organizing position, running for state representative or going to law school. “It’s outrageously expensive. I’d really have to weigh that. I feel so bad for (college) seniors now … who are thinking about grad school or law school. I just want to shake them and be like, ‘Don’t do it. Cut your losses.’ ”
What does the Upper Valley offer 20-somethings? Diversity of offerings in the different towns, outdoor activities, good quality of life and few barriers to civic involvement. “It’s very easy. If you want to get involved, you don’t have to be the son of someone. … I think there’s a lot more barriers to community involvement (in other areas.)”
What is lacking for 20-somethings in the Upper Valley? Affordable housing and rental markets, and support for young entrepreneurship. “You’ve got a little bit of the urban … but you’ve also got the really rural, so it’s really about making sure that both sides of the Upper Valley are supportive of young entrepreneurship, and taking risks.”