Falls Eagle Scout among four high school seniors running for state office in 2018

March 12--Noah Spinner watched in shame as six Republicans ridiculed each other in a nationally televised debate in 2016. A seventh man on stage, Ohio's governor, asked for civility. The cameras and candidates ignored him.

"I saw a lot of grown adults yelling at each other like kids," Spinner, 18, said. "I was 16 years old at the time and I said, 'Wait a second. That's how I yell at my brother.'"

That night, he asked his parents about running for office. They said, "go for it."

Across Ohio, at least four candidates for the Ohio House are still in high school.

There's Aden Baker, a Democrat who is seeking to represent the 82nd district in Northwestern Ohio, who blogged in October about how the local newspaper got most of what he told them right in his first ever interview. Garrett Baldwin of Mechanicburg, the only Democrat in the hunt for the rural 85th House district east of Columbus, is hardly mentioned as a teenager in media reports. And Tristam Cheeseman, also a lone Democrat, will face Rep. Bob Cupp (R-4) this fall. Cupp joined the statehouse 15 years before Cheeseman was born.

The fourth is Noah Spinner, an Eagle Scout from Cuyahoga Falls and one of two first-time candidates racing in the Democratic primary for Ohio's 36th House District.

Coming of age

In the months of nasty debates that followed that January showdown among Republicans in 2016, Spinner educated himself.

He studied the positions and votes of Rep. Anthony DeVitis, who Spinner hopes to make his opponent this fall should he win this May against attorney Tim Piatt. The two Democrats -- separated in time by 20 years and politically by nearly nothing -- say only nice things about each other.

Spinner had started to paint everything in his life a political tinge by his sophomore year. At his high school, he no longer saw recycling bins for paper but those that were missing for plastics and cans. He won his first campaign as treasurer of student council and served as an officer in the National Honor Society for gifted students.

A year after that rough Republican debate -- in which Donald Trump said his opponent's 90-year-old mother would put up a better fight -- Spinner heard hope in the farewell address of the man Trump would replace.

"If you're disappointed by your elected officials, grab a clipboard, get some signatures, and run for office yourself," Barack Obama said. "Show up. Dive in. Persevere. Sometimes you'll win. Sometimes you'll lose."

'Take action'

Spinner wasted little time.

He'd been a member of Mayor Don Walters' youth advisory council since 2015, when he helped classmates lobby adults to extend the riverfront curfew from 9 to 10 p.m., a big deal for teenage constituents.

He later probed his school and church for opportunities to do good. As a budding Eagle Scout, he spoke with University of Akron President Matt Wilson. In April 2017, Spinner would lead an army of gloved, broom-wielding, shovel-carrying volunteers in a campus wide clean-up effort. They recycled 2,035 pounds of litter -- which Spinner hopes to top this year on the Saturday before Earth Day.

While bussing tables at Ken Stewart's in Bath Township, Spinner spent the rest of 2017 campaigning for Mayor Walters' successful reelection campaign. "It was like a second after-school job," Spinner said of campaigning while clearing tables. He would knock on doors to help Democrats retake city council.

In Akron, he canvassed for Councilman Jeff Fusco, who lost the clerk of courts race. In that defeat, Spinner won a mentor and source of inspiration.

Now an adult, Spinner is a neighborhood ambassador in the Falls. He's been accepted to UA, where he intends to earn a degree in political science and law as he (hopefully) finishes a first term in the Ohio House.

"I would say I'm in it to win it," he said when pressed to explain what he might accomplish in defeat, whether by his Democratic opponent in May or DeVitis in November. "I'm in it for the long haul. But a big thing is showing that this kid is trying to make a difference. He's trying to make a positive impact. And maybe [I can] inspire other young people like myself to say, 'hey, let's take action. Let's get our voices heard."

Spinner, who got a flip phone in eighth grade and a smart phone two years later, spoke directly to youth who view derision and conflict on television and social media: "Let's do something about it."

Leading youth

Spinner has approached his every interest with optimism then pragmatism.

Every kid can be president, he once believed before abandoning youthful conceit. Next, he tempered then set aside aspirations to manage the Cleveland Indians.

As he grew into his community, local concerns became his.

As a member of the Ohio House, he would be the youngest, ever. Spinner's pre-conceived plans include raising more funding for public education and championing equality and justice for women, from restoring reproductive rights to closing the wage gap. He would extend the same care to the LGBT community, advancing policies that shield them from housing and employment discrimination.

As a student, Spinner's organizing a school walkout, leading his classmates outside for 17 minutes of silence for 13 students and three staff recently shot dead in a Florida high school.

And he'd be big on the environment. That's evident in a photograph from last April. Spinner's cheeks are red. He's wearing a bandana and T-shirt, surrounded by volunteers in warmer clothing as he stabs a spade shovel into the Earth.

Planted in the hole he dug during that campus-wide clean-up, a red bud tree grows outside the Student Union at UA to remind future generations how a hardworking environmentalist -- a teenager -- led adults.

Reach Doug Livingston at 330-996-3792 or dlivingston@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow him @ABJDoug on Twitter or http://www.facebook.com/doug.livingston.92 on Facebook.

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