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Teens help out on Election Day Photo by Jim Craven North Medford student Sarah Verboomen, 17, had a busy day Tuesday helping at Precinct 56's polling place, Lone Pine School. The county will continue hiring teens to help with ballots, but polling places will most likely cease to exist. By PETER WONG Like others at Jackson County's polling places, Sarah Verboomen helped voters sign poll books, obtain punch-card ballots and election booklets and detach stubs before they dropped their ballots into the box. But unlike most polling-place workers in Tuesday's general election, she was not yet eligible to cast a ballot of her own. "I'm not 18 yet, so I felt this was an introduction to voting," said Verboomen, a senior at North Medford High School. "I want to make informed decisions and be ready to vote. In our history classes, our teachers stress how much 18-year-olds need to vote, because most do not. "I took the time to read the ballot measures -- otherwise I would not have known they existed -- and to learn about government. So I think it was pretty exciting." Verboomen was among a record four dozen high school students who were hired by County Clerk Kathy Beckett to work at polling places. Beckett said her program started six years ago as a result of a conversation with Secretary of State Phil Keisling about how to draw more interest from high school students in the elections in which they soon would take part. "So many times they get caught up with rhetoric about candidates and measures in campaigns, but they do not have an opportunity to see what it takes to put on an election," Beckett said. "I think it's important for them to learn about it -- it gives them more ownership of the system." Verboomen, who worked Tuesday at Precinct 56 at Lone Pine School in Medford, said at least a couple of voters got carried away with the notion of ownership. "Two people took off with their ballots and asked if they could bring one home to their daughter," she said. Jamie Jamison, a junior at South Medford High School, hauled boxes of ballots from the second floor of the Courthouse Annex, where the county clerk's ballot-processing teams are, to the third floor where the ballots are tabulated. "I did it because I thought I would have a good time, it would give me some experience and help me make a little money," she said. "I learned that it is a slow process. But it's pretty cool how they do it." Molly Bostwick, a junior at Ashland High School, had more typical election-day duties working at Precinct 11 at Ashland Middle School. "This sounded like a good community activity I could do that was interesting," she said. "It was hard work helping people, but it was fun. I had no idea how complicated it was and how much effort actually went into the process of getting people to vote." Passage of Measure 60 will shut down Oregon's polling places, assuming that it withstands legal challenges, because it will require use of mail-in ballots in primary and general elections. Diana Rodriguez, a junior at Rogue River High School, said she'll miss the bustle she experienced Tuesday at Precinct 129 at the Evans Valley fire station in Wimer. "But I guess mail voting is probably better," she said. Beckett said she will continue to employ high school students to help process mail-in ballots before election day. "We're not going to have people like me at the polling places," said Ashland's Bostwick. "But I think there's still going to be a lot of work to be done." Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1998, Medford, Oregon USA