Sam was born into one of the Kingdom’s well-known farming families, the Young family, whose ancestors arrived from Scotland shortly after the Civil War to settle in West Glover, VT. Well before bailers and diesel tractors, generations of Youngs were pitching hay, picking stones, and living off the land. Vermont’s rich agrarian heritage truly lays the foundation of his upbringing. So does the sense that service to community is the key to happiness. Sam’s family has a proud history of civic participation including selectmen, listers and state representatives.
But Sam, like many young Vermonters, has witnessed an era of transition for Vermont families: An era in which children played more video games than worked the farm, in which Vermonters switched from party lines to e-mail and cell phones, and in which the power of the Town Meeting was usurped by the state government. For so many of us, it seems that we are now firmly marked by an era in which generations of Vermont families are threatened by the economic, technological, and bureaucratic inevitabilities of the modern world.
Sam Young’s self-education in face of these changes began at a young age. Sam grew up in Barton, VT and he was only 12 years old when he bought his first computer with his paper route money and started selling database services to local businesses. Later, when confronted with financial barriers to a college education, Sam secured independent status and scholarships to support his enrollment at the University of Vermont. At UVM, his passion for studying Computer Science and Mathematics was trumped only by his experience as a member of the Lawrence Debate Union. Without a doubt, Sam carries these powerful lessons in civic voice, community debate, and policy analysis into his campaign for State Representative.
Stifled by the limitations of a traditional school environment, and inspired by travels to the western United States, Sam left Vermont to study outdoor education at Prescott College in Arizona. The college’s motto, “Education is a Journey, Not a Destination,” would further propel a series of journeys around the world, including Mexico, Belize, the Virgin Islands, and Scotland. Most notably, Sam worked with a seed-saving organization in Australia, and for a children’s theater and cultural exchange group in Cuba. Experiences such as these illustrate a broadened perspective from which Sam hopes to bring people together and infuse innovation in the public decision-making process.
However no place could ever be truly called home other than the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont and in 2000, Sam returned to Glover. In 2006 he was elected as a Justice of the Peace in the the Town of Glover, since then he has married a number of couples and in 2009, chaired the Board of Civil Authority. He has since resigned due to a move to Albany, VT.
