Mayor swears in high school senior as honorary council member

ELGIN — High school senior Beija Robbins was sworn in Tuesday evening by Mayor John Stover as an honorary student member of the city council.

Robbins is the daughter of Larry and Billie Jo Robbins of Elgin. She will attend Elgin High School and serve her senior year as student council president. She became interested in the possibility of joining the city council last April.

“Our school librarian had encouraged me to use this experience as a senior project,” said Robbins, “and I’m glad I did.”

“This experience will give me a basic understanding of city government,” said Robbins. “I’ll learn a lot.”

As president of the student council, Robbins hopes to apply what she learns from the city council meetings and fashion the student meetings after them.

“I want to introduce what I learn about how to create agendas, write minutes and how to formally run a meeting,” Robbins said. “I want to turn our meetings into a more formal, functioning thing.”

Robbins said there hasn’t been a student member of the city council in three or four years.

“I already feel this has broadened my view of Elgin,” said Robbins, “and introduced me to things I didn’t know. It should be every citizen’s obligation to be informed, bring input to the council and be a part of Elgin.”

Robbins hopes to encourage the student council to voice their concerns about their city, and she plans to carry their opinions and recommendations to the city council each month through the coming school year.