PORTRAITS IN GOVERNORSHIPS
Healey’s contest for students elicits essays from eloquent to fun
As a new governor, Maura Healey faces many big questions. How can she fix the T? Where will she allocate the billions of dollars in her annual budget? And, most recently, whose portrait should she hang in her ceremonial office?
Healey left the latter to some of the state’s youngest minds.
In January, she launched a contest for students in kindergarten to 12th grade, asking them to write an essay about a Massachusetts governor who inspires them and why their portrait should hang in the governor’s ceremonial office.
The contest ultimately solicited 110 suggestions, with the top vote-getters former governors Deval Patrick (25), Jane Swift (13), Charlie Baker (12), Massachusetts’ first governor, John Hancock (8), and Michael Dukakis (5).
The results were charming, with students pleading for a visit to the State House, drawing personal connections to figures well before their time.
Healey ultimately chose to follow the suggestion made in an eloquent essay submitted by high school students who proposed hanging an empty frame. But The Boston Globe obtained other submissions from the governor’s office, with polite essays from many children detailing the historic contributions their favorite governors made throughout history, from universal health care to gay marriage.
Some of the students had a bit of fun with the prompt.
“He hoped he would make friends, but he didn’t,” a fourthgrader wrote about Hancock, who was adopted by a wealthy uncle as a child. “All the kids were jealous of his richness.”
Another student suggested Healey consider honoring former governor and America’s 30th president, Calvin Coolidge.
“By seeing his portrait on the wall hopefully Governor Healey[sic] will remember his motto,” the student wrote. “His motto was ‘Keep cool, keep Coolidge.’”
Some inserted themselves into the essays, making a case for a governor to whom they took a personal liking.
“I picked Swift because she specialized in schools and stu
dents and I love to go to school and hang out with my friends and learn new things,” a student wrote of Swift, who advocated for school funding as a state senator and as governor. She was the first woman to serve in the corner office who made history in 2001 when Governor Paul Cellucci resigned to become US ambassador to Canada, promoting Swift, then lieutenant governor, into the top job.
One student said they decided to write about Massachusetts’ 64th governor, Endicott Peabody, because they wanted to attend Endicott College in Beverly.
“Although I’m only in 8th grade, I am always worrying about college,” the student wrote. “I have always dreamed of going to college locally so I won’t be too far away from my parents.”
One student chose William Bradford, who signed the Mayflower Compact and served five terms as governor of the Plymouth Colony.
“My grampa told me about him because we are related,” the student wrote.
Other young essayists really just wanted to visit the State House and meet Healey in the flesh.
“I worked really hard on this and I learned so much more about Samuel Adams,” a student wrote of the revolutionary leader. “I hope whoever wins has a fun time there meeting you. THE END.”
Another student wrote they hope Healey chooses to hang a portrait of their selection, Peabody, “because I would very much like to meet you and go to the state house.”
A student from Concord, who suggested Healey choose John Volpe’s portrait to hang, said he thinks Volpe is “very underrated.” He had an ulterior motive, too.
“If you choose Volpe and I get to meet you in person, then my parents, relatives, teachers, and I will become jubilant,” the student wrote. “However, my friends will become jealous. And I, honestly, would love that.”
Those who came before Healey took part in a long tradition of selecting a predecessor to whom they had a connection. Baker chose Volpe, for whom his father worked when Volpe served as President Richard Nixon’s transportation secretary. Patrick chose John Andrew, a prominent leader in the abolitionist movement who helped organize the first Black regiment in the Civil War.
The collaborative essay suggestion Healey ended up following, titled “Inspiring Change and Dangerous Hope: Unequal Representation in the Commonwealth,” made the case that an empty frame would represent people whose voices “are not always represented or heard or reflected in the halls of power,” Healey said at an unveiling event in the State House last month.