Rexburg’s youth and university students help improve the city
REXBURG, Idaho (KIFI) - It takes a lot to run a city and keep everything going smoothly. It's a task that is nearly impossible to do alone. Rexburg Mayor Jerry Merrill says he has two different committees that help him plan events that the city puts on. The committees are the Mayors Youth Advisory Board (M.Y.A.B) mostly composed of High School Students and the Mayors University Student Involvement Committee (M.U.S.I.C) composed of college students.
The mayor says each committee has a special role.
"Working with the youth is always fun and enjoyable. It also helps expose them to what happens in a city and helps develop city leaders and then just a citizenry that is more educated, which I think is beneficial to the whole community," Mayor Merrill said.
Mayor Merrill says the youth advisory board helps plan many of the service projects in the city.
"The biggest one they help us with is planting the flowers up and down Main Street in the spring. They help to organize that and do a great job with it. And they do a lot of other things, just service things that come up like just recently they helped us with when we did our we went out to the elementary schools and read a book to them about what happens in cities. And they came and helped us," he said.
While the youth board helps plan various service projects in the city for residents to participate in, the University Advisory Board helps the Mayor bridge a perceived gap between the college students and long term residents.
"We call the acronym for that is M.U.S.I.C. And we felt like that was a good acronym because if we're working together, we make good music together, we work in harmony," Mayor Merrill said.
He added they help plan many of the events inside the city as well.
"So we've looked for opportunities to try to have activities and things that that work together with the with both communities. And so the mayor's University Student Involvement Committee has helped us with our winter fest, And we're talking about doing some kind of a kind of a soapbox derby type event, you know, that we're going to call it the potato box derby or something that fits, you know, Rexburg, Idaho. And so just events like that that are fun, events that bring the community and the university students together to socialize and get to know each other better or things that we're trying to promote."
Last October's Ok'Tuber'er fest was a result of planning from the M.U.S.I.C, M.Y.A.B. and the city. The Mayor adds his goal is making sure that the students who come to study at BYU-Idaho feel more than welcome in their secondary home.
"We want to make sure they feel welcome here and involved in the community and love their time here. And we've talked to a lot of them that that would like to stay here because they like the community and the feel of it."
The Mayor says both groups help him make sure the city is a fun place to live.
"(They), help us get a lot of the things done that we're able to do."
He says if you are interested in joining either group, you can find an application at city hall located at 35 N 1st E, Rexburg, ID 83440.
