University of Georgia senior, Madison Hickey, serves as legislative intern at General Assembly

ATLANTA — It’s 11 a.m. on Thursday during the General Assembly’s spring session, and people from all over Georgia start to the fill the wide hallways of the state Capitol building in downtown Atlanta.

It’s noisy, and it’s noticeably warmer inside than the weather outside on this brisk February morning.

“This happens every day about this time,” Madison Hickey, a senior studying agricultural communication at the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, said.

The crowded hallways are a far cry from the small town of Toccoa, where Hickey grew up, or even the quiet calm of the South Campus at UGA — but it suits her.

Hickey is a legislative intern with the state Senate Committee on Agriculture and Consumer Affairs as part of CAES’s legislative internship program. Through this program, students spend 12 weeks working full-time at the Capitol, helping legislators craft policies that will impact the state’s largest industry — agriculture.

CAES and the Senate committee sponsor the program. Hickey, who has been interested in the policies that shape agriculture since her days with the Future Farmers of America Chapter at Stephens County High School, decided to use the legislative internship as a capstone experience for her CAES career.

“I chose to serve as a legislative intern because I believe it is important to have an understanding of the legislative process and how decisions on the state level impact all Georgians,” Hickey said.

Her experience working with Sen. John Wilkinson, who represents the Toccoa area in the state Senate and serves as chairman of the committee, helped her understand how policy decisions are made.

“I have learned that it truly takes a team of individuals working together to develop and pass a bill,” Hickey said.

Hickey credits her agricultural communication courses with preparing her for work at the Capitol.

“Madison has been a tremendous asset to our office this session,” Wilkinson said. “She is very bright and has a tremendous work ethic. She has been here every day and has done a great job communicating with constituents and members of the agriculture community.”

After her experience in Atlanta, Hickey will graduate from CAES in May and said she hopes to pursue a career where she can merge her passions for agricultural policy and agricultural marketing.

CAES’s Georgia Legislative Internship is supported with help from the CAES Deans’ Promise Fund and the Elliott and Christy Marsh Legislative Internship Fund. For more information about the opportunities for leadership available to students attending CAES, visit www.students.caes.uga.edu.

Merritt Melancon is a news editor with the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences