Cardinal News: Then & Now takes a look back at the stories we brought you over the last 12 months. Through the end of the year, we’ll share updates on some of the people and issues that made news in 2023.
Maeve McCulloch, now 20, has had the better part of two years to find her stride as one of the youngest currently serving public officials in Virginia.
She was first appointed in June 2022, when Ridgeway, a town of 746 in Henry County, needed a new council member.
“They had vacancies,” McCulloch said. “They had three members but because they needed a quorum, everybody had to be there.”
Ridgeway Mayor Craig O’Der suggested that the council consider someone many would see as a nontraditional choice.
McCulloch, a former member of the mayor’s Youth Advisory Council, a group meant to connect students and local governance, managed to catch the mayor’s attention.
“I had served on that committee for all throughout high school,” McCulloch said. “He asked if I would like the position and I said, yes.”
Although McCulloch had recently graduated high school and was studying at Patrick and Henry Community College, O’Der felt she would be a good fit for the council. His fellow council members agreed and voted unanimously to appoint her.
“It was very exciting,” McCulloch said. “I got to learn a lot in the first several months of being on the council. My friends and family were also supportive and that was great.”
Her first few months as the state’s youngest council member were not without difficulties.
“It was hard to learn things like … motor vehicle licenses,” McCulloch said about her difficulty grasping some of the technical aspects. “I barely passed my personal finance class in high school so I needed quite a bit of help from the council to figure all that out.”
She added that her fellow council members made themselves more than available to provide her help.
“Once I was in the position it took me a couple months, maybe, before I felt pretty sure what was happening,” McCulloch said.
Now moving on to her third year, McCulloch wants to emphasize her work rather than the novelty of her age. Since her appointment she has either taken part in or spearheaded a number of projects.
“Like the Christmas parade, I felt I had a larger role in it than last year,” McCulloch said. “I actually used my connections at [Patrick & Henry Community College] to get the cheer team to participate, which hasn’t been done before. So that was awesome. I went back to my high school and talked to [students] about being a young person on a town council.”
McCulloch credits her experience as a local official with helping her solidify what she wants to do as a career.
“I want to be a lawyer, a prosecutor,” McCulloch said, adding that while she is currently a student at Patrick & Henry Community College, she intends to transfer to a law school in the future.
Currently, however, McCulloch wants to focus on taking what she learned in 2023 and applying it to her position on the council.
“Knowing the people you work with is the biggest thing,” McCulloch said. “We’re such a small community we don’t have anything big or flashy to talk about, we can only represent our people the best that we can.”