Magnolia High School will have juniors Lindy Westfall, Myka Craig, Samantha Wilson, Lindsey Cornwell and Sutton Nelson participate in the 78th Session of the American Legion Auxiliary Arkansas Girls State May 30 - June1, 2021. Harding University in Searcy normally hosts the Girls State delegates, but this year the event will be held virtually.
Three local businesses or agencies sponsors and pays the registration fee for the participants. The local sponsors are the American Legion Auxiliary, Farmers Bank and Trust Co., and the Magnolia Junior Charity League.
Arkansas Girls State in an immersive civics education program designed for young women who have completed their junior year of high school. Since 1942, the Arkansas Girls State program has been working to teach future generations of Arkansans citizens to be actively involved in their communities and government at every level. The program informs them about the duties, privileges, and participation in the functioning of their government; and to help them grasp the meaning of some of the responsibilities, which they must assume when they become adults. The delegates elect their own officials, organize their own legislature, and have official visits to their respective counterparts in the capital.
Once a student completes an application, a committee of teachers and a representative of the local American Legion Auxiliary make the decisions on who will attend Girls State based on the following qualifications: leadership, character and honesty, scholarship, cooperativeness, and community participation and service.