Still in school, but already a delegate

At the end of May, 18-year-old Kyra Underbakke will get dressed up and debate politics with members of the Republican Party at the state convention.

A few days later, she will change into hiking boots and play in the world's largest paintball game in Oklahoma.

While her interests vary greatly, Underbakke, a Brooklyn Park student, has ended up getting more involved in politics than she was expecting. She attended her local caucus in February, and after speaking up about education issues, she was elected as a Third District delegate to the party's state convention. She will go to Rochester for the convention just days before her high school graduation from Maranatha Christian Academy in Brooklyn Park.

"My caucus was coming up so I thought I would go and vote," she said. "Then I realized, I'm an adult, I can participate in politics, cool."

Timara Underbakke, Kyra's mom, said their family, which lives in Plymouth, talks about politics and current events at home, so she wasn't surprised when her daughter participated in the caucus. Both Timara and Kyra were delegates to their Senate District convention, but Kyra beat her mom for the chance to go to the state convention.

"She had some strong feelings and had no qualms about speaking up," Timara Underbakke said. "Because she's living the student life, education issues are important to her."

Kyra considered trying to make it to the Republican National Convention, which will be held in St. Paul in September, but she decided that the time commitment would be too much. She is starting college this fall at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, where she is planning to pursue a double major in biology and English.

She has a few more weeks of high school left, so she is spending her time playing on Maranatha's varsity softball team and preparing for the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, which will be held in Atlanta in mid-May. Her teachers at Maranatha said they hope she will share her experience of the political process with her classmates before she graduates.

"Having Kyra participate and report back is going to make it more real to her classmates and hopefully inspire them," said Brian Sullivan, Maranatha's chief administrator. "It's one thing to learn about civics and another to be part of the process."

For Underbakke, the experience of being involved in politics was worth the sacrifices she had to make in her schedule. But there was one thing she couldn't miss -- Underbakke made the difficult decision to miss the Third Congressional District Convention so she could play a tournament with her softball team, which would have been shorthanded without her.

And she isn't that concerned that she isn't attending the Republican National Convention.

"I am very new at politics so it might be better for the party if I didn't go," she said.

Lora Pabst • 612-673-4628