Decked out, as always, in a sharp shirt and tie, student representative Shaun Callahan directed a few final words to Edmonds’ City Council Monday night.
As he thanked the council members, the audience members and the community at large he seemed, as always, to be an 18-year-old politician in the making.
“We have great community support in this city, and I’d like to recognize that,” Callahan said. “I’m kind of sad to be leaving you guys, but thank you.”
Monday was the end of Callahan’s term as student representative to the city council. It was also the end, some council members said, of one of the more interesting student representative terms ever.
Never afraid to interject his voice into contentious debates — a willingness never more obvious than during his harsh criticism of the city’s proposed, and eventually enacted, cat roaming law — the recent Edmonds-Woodway graduate served the spring and summer terms on council.
“A lot of the (student reps) we have, they’ll come and they’ll watch,” said council president Peggy Pritchard Olson. “But, Shaun, if he disagreed with half of the council, he didn’t have any compunction with saying, ‘I think you are crazy on this subject.’”
That was his goal, said Callahan, who will begin attending Edmonds Community College this fall.
If anything, he wanted to make waves, he said. He was so eager to offer up constructive criticism that at points during his tenure, he’d ask his friends if they had any suggestions for how to improve the city.
His friends were a diverse group. Both an International Baccalaureate student at Edmonds-Woodway and a member of the basketball and football teams — Callahan is 6-foot-7 — Callahan moved in many groups.
He impressed his classmates enough that when he graduated, he was named the student most likely to become president.
He’s not sure he wants to become a politician, he said.
“At this point, I feel like I could do anything. I’m having trouble deciding,” he said. “I know I don’t want to just live a regular life. I want to make a difference. I want to make changes.”
He also knows that he doesn’t want to play music — that ended badly — and that he loves Edmonds and its council meetings.
Before he joined the council as student representative, he used to watch the meetings on Channel 21, he said.
His father would pick out humorous highlights, usually the audience comments section, and then replay them for Shaun. There are also plenty of jokes from staff members and elected officials, Callahan said.
“Council meetings are the best entertainment for Tuesday nights in Edmonds,” he said.
For him, the goal was always to speak his mind. He did that, he said.
As he left, the entire council agreed.
“We really appreciated that,” Mayor Gary Haakenson said in Monday night’s special meeting. “You really did speak your mind.”
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