Hayden McCullough, an incoming Tyler Legacy High School senior, will visit Washington D.C. as a senator in Boys Nation program this month to write legislation and meet President Joe Biden in D.C. Boys State and Boys Nation are American Legion government instruction programs where high school students set up local, county and state governments to run for office and draft legislation.

Hayden McCullough has one more year of high school at Tyler Legacy High, but he already has a distinguished career with academics, athletics and clubs.

So imagine his surprise when he was called to the office a few months ago.

He was nominated for Boys State by his favorite educator, James D. Hancock, an AP Language and Composition and AP Capstone (seminar and research) instructor at Tyler ISD.

McCullough never heard about the program, and now, his life is about to change.

“I didn’t really even know about this until I got called to the office at Legacy High School and was told that I had been nominated,” he said. “I love history a lot, and I intend to go into the political sphere for a career after my military service. I really enjoyed it; it’s definitely government-focused. It’s the most intellectually and socially demanding program I’ve ever been in.”

It’s also allowing him to write legislation and meet the President of the United States this summer.

McCullough, an incoming Tyler Legacy High School senior, has always dreamed of becoming a leader to help others. He wants to be a United States senator after a U.S. Navy career.

At the Texas chapter of Boys State, an American Legion government instruction program, he and other high school students set up local, county and state governments to run for office and draft legislation.

He was later elected to the highest office in the program — president pro tempore of the Senate. The person in the role serves as the Senate’s president in the absence of the vice president.

At the end of the week, McCullough was selected as one of the Boys State participants to serve as a senator in Boys Nation from July 23 to 30 to write legislation and meet President Joe Biden in D.C.

“I’ll be flown out to Washington D.C. to do the same thing but on the national level,” he said. “I’m drafting a bill right now, and then I’m going to meet the president as well. That’s going to be lots of fun.”

He added that he’s the only one in his family who hasn’t been to Washington. He called Boys State the best thing he’s done so far.

“The main lesson that I took away was that a leader has to be willing to serve above all else, and it shouldn’t be a position of power but a position of responsibility,” McCullough said.

Typically, Boys State would be held in the Texas Capitol, but this year’s event was virtual. He called running for several offices and creating legislation a long yet fun process.

He ran for senator of his assigned city, county delegate and later ran for president pro tempore. He also served as a state delegate within the Federalist Party.

Using web conferencing, he appointed three cabinet members and organized 36 senators into nine different committees. Those groups collaborated to draft bills regarding education, business, commerce, economic development and water safety.

McCullough worked with his parliamentarian, who had Model United Nations experience, to come up with rules for speakers to discuss the bills.

“We carried out our Senate sessions and we ended up passing 27 bills through the Senate,” he said, adding that those bills were then passed on to the House of Representatives.

While most were on lunch break, his dedication continued as he held meetings with the speaker of the House or the press.

Throughout the conference, McCullough recalled having terrible technical problems, such as being placed in the wrong city initially and internet outages.

He realized the wrong placement later gave him an advantage by using his connections with the previous city.

McCullough added that God had a plan, and maintaining his faith helped immensely.

“I definitely want to make that clear that I could not have gotten to the point that I did without God,” he said. “It’s definitely God’s intervention that got me to this point.”

When he was elected president pro tempore, his internet went out. So he used his hotspot but that soon went out as well. His dad fixed the internet but service went out once again, and his dad’s hotspot stopped working as well.

“I actually had to leave my house and go to a Residence Inn where they had internet,” he said. “The last half of Boys State I was actually in a hotel room and I got to get everything done there.”

McCullough is currently going through the application process for the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. He wants to learn foreign area studies with a minor in Chinese and go into special operations in the Navy.

He said he needs a nomination from U.S. Congressman Louie Gohmert, R-Tyler, for the Naval Academy application. After having a career in the Navy, he’ll go into the political realm and seek the U.S. senator position.

“I think God’s given me some opportunities to help people and I want to make sure that I do the best I can to serve Him,” he said. “I want to go into the Navy to serve. I want to go into the special forces to serve and I want to come out and serve our country as a politician as well.”

Leadership is nothing new for McCullough. He’s a senior representative with the student council and president of the National Honor Society.

He’s also a part of the Rho Kappa National Social Studies Honor Society and the swim team. He’s running for president of Tyler Legacy’s Chinese Club.

“This (Boys State) was definitely the highest honor I’ve had just to get selected to this point,” McCullough said. “It puts me among the highest-caliber group of guys I’ve known that are my age. We all got to dive into this completely boy-led program and decide who’s going to be in positions of authority. It really facilitated some really good leadership opportunities for all of us to work together.”