PLYMOUTH, Pa. -- Wyoming Valley West High School received an award from the state for a successful voter registration drive held last school year.
In the spring, students at Wyoming Valley West High School started a voter registration drive to get their fellow classmates to register to vote.
"Within two weeks, I think we had 160 kids registered out of 180-some students," Wyoming Valley West Social Studies teacher Anthony Dicton said.
Fast forward to now, Pennslyvania's Secretary of State Robert Torres presented the school with a Governor's Civic Engagement Award. Wyoming Valley West High received gold status for getting 87 percent of the students who were eligible to register to vote.
"What I try to stress is that healthy democracy requires active and engaged citizens, and being able to encourage them to register to vote, and more importantly, get them to get out to vote at this stage in their lives is critically important," Torres said.
The students at Wyoming Valley West are hoping to see students at schools all across the state get involved, too.
"If the students want the politicians to listen to them and want the votes to actually matter, then we have to diversify the voting pool, and that includes the high school students, to make sure our votes get represented and make sure our interests are included," Wyoming Valley West Student Ambassador Alec Ryncavage said.
The students also held a registration drive this year. They'll find out next May if they achieved Gold Status again.