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The new mayor of Hillsdale, Michigan, is a man of the people, ready to listen to their problems, but only until 6 p.m. Then he has to do his homework.Michael Sessions, 18, beat former mayor Douglas Ingles, 51, by just two votes and became the new mayor of Hillsdale.He is America's youngest mayor.
As Sessions was too young to enter the election in the spring of 2005, he registered to vote on Sept.22, one day after his l8-year-old birthday.The day after that he started his write-in campaign(战役), which means he should persuade voters to remember his name and write it by hand on the voting ballots(选票).
To help get his name known, Sessions earned $700 by selling apples over the summer.He spent the money on posters and put them on the Hillsdale's lawns.
Session's month-long campaign included going door to door, explaining his ideas of the town's future in the kitchens of his neighbours.“They'd look at me, and say ‘How old are you again?How much experience do you have?’ And I say ‘I’m still in high school’”he said.
Sessions promised Hillsdale's voters he would renew local economy.“I was hopeful the whole time,”he explained.One day he spent so 1ong out on the streets knocking on the doors that he ended up in a hospital emergency room.
Sessions said that his schoolwork will not get in the way of his job as a mayor.“From 7∶50 a.m. to 2∶30 p.m., I'll be a student.From 3 to 6, I'll be mayor of Hillsdale.”he said.
“He did a very brave thing that couldn't have been easy for him to do,”said Jack Vetted,a councilman in Hillsdale, a city of 8,200 about 75 miles southwest of Detroit.“He does care about this town.He's been here all his life.”
Sessions will receive $3,600 a year during his four-year term, and will work out of his bedroom since the town does not provide the mayor with an office.
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