Members of the Ringgold Youth Council with the City Council.
With creativity and collaboration, the Ringgold Youth Council has brought history to life and so much more.
Sometimes to make things work, you just have to get out of the way.
That’s the approach Ringgold City Council Member Rhonda Swaney decided to take when she realized the newly-formed Youth Council she was overseeing just wasn’t working as planned.
The Ringgold Youth Council was created in 2022 with the goal of engaging young people and teaching them about how city government works. Although high schoolers signed up, Swaney was having trouble getting them to participate.
“It was like swimming in molasses,” Swaney recalls. “They were learning, but not engaged. I couldn’t get them to follow through.”
So she changed course and asked them what they wanted to do. It turns out the students wanted to take a more service-oriented approach and do more for the community.
Swaney took the advice of a fellow council member to “step aside and let them go” and got out of the way. And that’s when the Youth Council took off.
The Council established a structure and planned activities such as a Pickleball Tournament and a food drive and installed a “Rainbow Bridge” to honor deceased pets. They conceived, planned and executed a “Living Legends” series that gives an oral history of Ringgold.
“Part of being a public servant is having an attitude of service,” Swaney says. “And these kids wanted to serve.”
Telling Stories of the Past
The Living Legends series began as a discussion about cleaning off old headstones in a cemetery and it morphed into a conversation about a different way to honor Ringgold’s history.
Youth Council members wanted to focus on people who were living and share that history with the public. They came up with the concept of presenting oral histories from Ringgold residents and Living Legends was born.
“This series was created to uncover and share untold stories from various neighborhoods and eras – giving a voice to difficult and overlooked narratives,” says Swaney.
Alvin Ridley, seated, was the focus of the Ringgold Youth Council's first Living Legends event.
The first story was that of Alvin Ridley, a television repairman with autism, who was accused of murdering his wife in 1997. He was defended by attorney McCracken Poston and eventually found not guilty.
“We thought this was a story people could learn from,” says Youth Council member Stella Gothard, a junior at Ringgold High School. “It was a fascinating story.”
The Youth Council met with the pair ahead of the event.
“We discussed format and boundaries and what they were willing to share,” says Slade Swaney, another Youth Council Member who is also a junior at Ringgold High School. “We wanted to make sure their story was told in the most respectful way possible.”
Facilitated by a moderator, Ridley and Poston told their story at a packed event at the Ringgold Depot in February 2024. In sharing their journey, the two shed a light on autism, communication differences and their enduring friendship. The moderator took questions from the audience to give it a more interactive feel.
It was a huge success.
“We were expecting 50 people,” Stella says. “We had 300. People just kept coming in.”
“It was so rewarding,” adds Slade. “I think it showed that people our age can pull off something like this that can benefit the community – and the community shared our passion for wanting to tell these stories.”
Going off the success of their first event, the Youth Council decided to make Living Legends an ongoing series. The next event will feature Ruth Montgomery, whose mother, Mattie Green, was killed when a bomb exploded underneath the family’s home in 1960. No one was ever charged in the crime, but members of the Ku Klux Klan were suspected to have been involved.
“There is so much value in giving people the opportunity to tell their stories,” Swaney says. “It allows us to hear stories about history and it can be a lesson in how not to repeat it.”
In October, the Ringgold Youth Council was recognized with a GMA Community Impact Award for their work on Living Legends. These awards honor individuals and cities for the positive impact they have made in the state of Georgia.
Slade Swaney during the 2024 Community Impact Awards.
Learning and serving at the same time
Whether it’s Living Legends, a food drive, a talent show, or a basketball tournament, Swaney says the community always shows up to Youth Council events.
“These kids can draw a crowd,” Swaney says. “The community is much more receptive when it’s a Youth Council activity. They see young people wanting to be involved in city leadership and they support it.”
The Ringgold Youth Council currently consists of 12 members, which Swaney sees as a good number. They must go through an application process and if accepted, can serve on the Council until they graduate. The Council has an annual budget of $10,000.
“I feel like Youth Councils are a good idea for all communities,” says Slade. “It gives students a space to come up with creative ideas that they might not have the opportunity to anywhere else. We are always thinking of ways to help the community.”
Along with learning the inner-workings of city government as well as having an opportunity to serve their community, there are other benefits. Students also gain self-confidence in sharing their ideas and learn teamwork, public speaking, and life skills.
“I feel like I have a voice,” says Stella. “And that’s a great feeling, knowing that kids like us can make a difference.”