A Chemical Reaction

After receiving his diploma from Terrebonne High School, 18-year-old Barry McGuire had a lot to think about.

His immediate future is going to give the Houma resident a pretty full dance card. 

Already, he is preparing for the classes he will take at Tulane University, where he will major in chemical engineering. What happens beyond that he’s not quite sure of. 

But there will for the next four years be a lot more of his nose pressed in to the books, which is what he spent a lot of time with at Terrebonne. His chemistry teacher, Adrian Adams, made a big impression and was always encouraging.

That made it a lot easier to pore through the books, the formulas, the math that is inherent for a chemistry student. 

There were a lot of fun times, of course, like the times Barry would be in the lab wearing his crisp white apron and protective goggles. The most fun thing to do was see what happens when you mix hydrochloric acid with sucrose.

“You can make solid carbon,” he said, explaining that it’s not just what you make from it that is cool but the process. As anything else, getting there is half the fun, in this case even more. 

“It’s exothermic, so you watch it go through the entire spectrum of colors,” Barry explains. “When you combine them it goes through the spectrum and then turns black, and bubbles over and solidifies into the solid carbon.”

It is this whole thing about process that has kept Barry focused on the chemistry, it is what makes him find it ever so interesting, and one would hope might keep him in the field for many years to come.

Unless, of course, he is successful in creating a superfuel. That’s just an idle dream for now but who knows? Something that can burn cleaner, hotter and more powerfully than what we put in the tanks of automobiles. And you never can tell, Barry might be the one to invent it.

But as he continues toward college, Barry is focused on another type of process as well.

As chairman of the Terrebonne Parish Youth Advisory Council, he leads a group of 17 young people, all of whom hope to make an early dent in these communities where they live.

There used to be a YAC but it fell into disuse and failed to attract members. Councilwoman Arlanda Williams saw a need for such a thing to happen again, and so last year she recruited some pretty awesome teens to make it happen.

“My babies,” she calls them, acknowledging that she is fiercely protective of them all.

There she was like a mother hen at a recent ice cream social, held at the Terrebonne Economic Development Authority, where Barry and other youth council members learned about how to register guests at an event TEDA organized. The Entrepreneur Fest, held at the Houma-Terrebonne Civic Center last week, was a resounding success. The youth council members helped out and became part of the success.

But mostly what they do now is attend Parish Council meetings, and while they haven’t had much of a say this year they are laying the groundwork.

Because this process – the making of ordinances and the voting on how money is spent, the process of government, which is the assignment of scant resources to a large group of people – demands participation. And not enough people, in Barry’s opinion, even those graduated from high school or college and knee-deep in careers, really get involved.

So right now they are learning about ordinances and Robert’s Rules of Order, all the while with Arlanda Williams guiding and coaching, and even though Barry is leaving soon there are juniors and even sophomores who will keep up the good work.

“We have mostly been communicating with the school board on some issues, but our most influential thing for now is laying the groundwork,” Barry explained. “Most government appears aimed toward older citizens who are actively in it. But there is a silent majority of youth who have potential but a lot don’t realize they can have the voice in government.”

One way to cure that, Barry says – speaking for himself right now and not the council – is for agendas to be made more understandable to just plain folks.

“Looking at the agenda, some of the issues are difficult to understand, and if people don’t know how or don’t do proper research it may go over their heads,” Barry said. “We need to tone down some of the more technical aspects of government and not just for youth. I feel there needs to be something like ‘No Fear Shakespeare’ but for government.

It’s not something I have heard parish council members, or the state legislators who meet in Baton Rouge, talk a lot about.

But the lawmakers may hear some time soon from the youngsters, and might want to pay heed.

The chemical reaction has already begun.