Jack McGaughey
"I was a few weeks short of being old enough to vote in 2016,"
says Jack McGaughey, who was then a senior at Marist High School. "I
followed the election, but didn't feel closely connected. Growing into
adulthood during the Trump presidency showed me how important good
leadership is." Born and raised in Eugene, McGaughey attended O'Hara
Catholic School for grades 1-8 and also studied theater and music with
Rose Children's Theatre, Oregon Children's Choir, and Imagine That!
summer camps, where he met his musical mentor Scotty Perey. After high
school, he moved to England for a three-year course of study at the
Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts. In February of this year, he
joined The Bluejays, the UK's top 1950's vintage rock and roll band, on
keyboards. "I was bummed out," he says, after returning to Eugene in
March because of COVID. "The band was booked for upwards of 15 cruise
ship gigs." But soon he began to take an interest in the 2020 election,
in particular a friend's Instagram post about Vote Forward, a nonprofit
that enables volunteers to write letters to Democratic voters who are
unlikely to vote. "I feel passionately about underrepresentation of
young people," he says. "I ended up writing 220 letters ahead of the
election." Volunteers who sign up on the Vote Forward website receive a
template file to be printed for each recipient, with space for the
sender's handwritten message. "When they announced a campaign for the
Georgia senate runoff election, I enlisted my girlfriend Madeleine
Rowell and our roommate Hannah Davis," he notes. "We decided that we
would write 3000 letters. The letters ask Georgians to vote without
telling them how to vote." The trio is holding a fundraiser to pay off
the $1650 that they have spent on stamps. Learn how to donate on the
Jack McGaughey Facebook page, where you can also find an Isolation
Recording video of Jack on piano with the Bluejays Big Band, performing
Jackie Wilson's "Reet Petite."
happening people
photograph and story by Paul Neevel
Eugene Weekly / 7 January 2021
|
|
archive
contact