This weekend concludes my first week back on campus, and I thought it would be interesting to provide a look into what that looks like!
My name is Zach Coltrain and I am a 19-year-old college student going into my 3rd year, and I am the youngest filed candidate for the VA house of delegates ever.
This week began with my bassoon auditions through the school of music which determines what musical ensemble you will play in, it's a process all music majors go through each semester. This of course also means I had my first rehearsals for the Symphony Band and Blazing Bassoons ensembles at Appalachian State.
Being a music therapy major, I also met my practicum clients for the semester and have begun planning my weekly sessions for them. This is a space where we get clinical practice in front of board-certified supervisors. I’ve really missed the ambient sounds of instruments throughout the building, and it's good to be back.
If you’re interested, here is a video of me testing out the acoustics of my new apartment.
As a captain of the App State Speech and Debate team, I helped organize and put on the tryouts for the team this year. Simultaneously I was connecting with some young democrat organizations to try and reach out to the high schools within my district. We agree that teen/young voters have and can change election results and we need to establish avenues to make the process as easy for them as possible. A great current segue for this is the federal loan forgiveness that is being implemented (which I discovered I will qualify for, and as a Pell Grant student I am very ecstatic!)
More on the campaign side of things, this week I began talking with a reporter for the newspaper of our district. I look forward to seeing what comes from that, and I hope (as with these articles) that the unconventional side of my campaign can attract some attention from the people in my district. I also now appear on vpap as a candidate in the race which solidified how real this is.
Twitter Post of when VPAP launched my name
On top of that, I was reached out by the wonderful Activate Virginia to sign their pledge not to receive any money from Dominion Energy or Appalachian Power co. I was thrilled to add my name to the list. My team has been working hard to start creating the look of my campaign (logo, design, website, etc.) and I really couldn’t do it without them on top of school.
As we are getting closer to this November we are beginning to plan for phone banking events for the National House Incumbent in my home district. Elaine Luria is a bellwether for the country and many are looking at her race to determine what the house will look like after the midterms. 2022 and 2023 will be spotlighted elections up and down the ballot in VA, and running in a race that was slated to be uncontested is the most impactful thing I can do to make sure that progress is protected, and voters come out to the polls.
If you would like to support my campaign, feel free to help me out using the ActBlue link below, I appreciate the support moving forward into 2023!