Photo courtesy of Jordan Pennington

Jordan Pennington, 17, of Mukilteo worked as a page during the last congressional session for the U.S. House of Representatives under Rep. Adam Smith.
 

In the mornings, Jordan Pennington went to school.

 

During her afternoons, however, she journeyed through the labyrinth of tunnels under the U.S. Capitol complex in Washington, D.C.

 

Pennington, 17, of Mukilteo, recently returned from working as a congressional page under Rep. Adam Smith, D-Tacoma, with the U.S. House of Representatives Page Program.  

 

She was one of 70 pages working for the House during the last congressional session, which released in August.

 

“I just love the government process; the whole legislative thing,” Pennington said.  “I like the atmosphere that they have there.  It makes me happy to be there.”

 

Pennington paged before for the state Legislature in Olympia: under Reps. Pat Sullivan, D-Covington, in 2007 and then Marko Liias, D-Mukilteo, in 2009 with the Washington State House of Representatives Page Program.

 

After paging for Washington’s Capitol twice, Pennington was ready to go to the other Washington.

 

“We’re always encouraging the kids to go out and do things outside basic academics,” said Cindy Pennington, Jordan’s mom. “She didn’t want to go at first, but came back loving it.”

 

Pennington, now in the Running Start program at Edmonds Community College, likes that pages get to work behind-the-scenes in government.  She said she feels giddy knowing she’s assisting the people who make important decisions about our lives every day.

 

Pages – mostly juniors in high school – are hired to serve as support staff for House representatives.   They spend a session of Congress living at the House Page Residence Hall, studying at the House Page School and working for the House in D.C.

 

As a page, Pennington delivered legislative correspondence via the underground tunnels, answered phones and held the door open to the House Floor for Speaker Nancy Pelosi.  She also got to watch the representatives at work.

 

“It was just amazing to be in our nation’s Capitol,” Pennington said.  “I felt important, even though it was probably one of the least important jobs there.”

 

Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Lake Stevens, didn’t have an opening for a page that session, so Pennington applied for four other Washington state representatives and got into the program through Smith.  Each representative sponsors one page per session, usually from the district they serve.

 

Pennington said she felt star-struck while working in D.C. She had her picture taken with Smith in front of the Washington state flag, and she delivered papers to Vice President Joe Biden’s office.

 

On Pennington’s last day as a page, Pelosi greeted her with a “Good morning” and a “How are you?” – which Pennington said made her day.

 

Now that she’s paged for both the Washington state and U.S. capitols, Pennington is looking into a career working in Congress – probably in the Office of the Clerk so she can work behind-the-scenes again.

 

To get to the House Floor someday, she plans to major in political science at either the University of Washington or Seattle University.

 

“It clicked with Jordan,” Cindy Pennington said.  “She just started finding interest in [American] history, and the government is obviously a very big part of our history.”

 

“Every time I talked to her, she said ‘Mom, this is so amazing,’” she said of Jordan’s calls from D.C.  “That’s what she said every time: ‘It’s so amazing.’”

 

For more information on the U.S. House of Representatives Page Program, go to http://pageprogram.house.gov.