For the first time ever, The Des Moines Register has selected a handful of young people to be Board of Opinion contributors, including four students from Iowa State.

Randy Jenkins, freshman in pre-advertising, Sam Wong, freshman in electrical engineering, Michael Williams, senior in mechanical engineering, and Dmitriy Zlobin, freshman in computer science, were chosen as young opinion writers for the panel this year.

Register Editorial Page editor Richard Doak said the Board of Contributors was established because Register staff members wanted the page to have a broader range of opinions from diverse groups of people.

“Since young people weren’t appearing on our page very often, we thought this would be a good way of ensuring some young voices on the page,” Doak said. “It will be better and more interesting to readers.”

He said participants were asked to submit a 500- to 750-word essay about an issue they feel strongly about that can be related to life in Iowa.

“It was our judgment whether we thought readers would enjoy the articles, so we really didn’t put any limitations on the essay,” Doak said. “We were looking for just about anything as far as opinion submissions.”

Doak said the idea is to continue the board each year by assembling a group of young people who submit essays for publication.

Wong said he wrote an editorial about the Federation for American Immigrants Reformation Organization trying to cut most types of illegal immigrants.

“I got started around the time of the caucuses when they were advertising,” Wong said. “I was disappointed how they tried to sway the public’s opinion with one-sided statistics. What was a public service announcement sounded more like propaganda.”

Wong noted in his essay the need for immigrants to continue economic growth in the technical field of business.

“I think this is a good opportunity,” Wong said. “Writing has always been a creative outlet for me and fulfills artistic and creative tendencies that engineering doesn’t offer.”

Jenkins said he was excited to be chosen for the panel of young writers. “I always had an interest in writing but was never really encouraged to write,” he said.

Jenkins said his essay was a commentary about diversity and retention rates at Iowa State.

“I talked about how cultural diverseness of the Iowa State community, and if minority students are misled into coming to Iowa State,” he said.

These selected opinion articles and more will appear on the Essay/Comment page in the Des Moines Register throughout the year.