Rep. Kevin Windham Jr.
Missouri Rep. Kevin Windham, Jr., (Dist. 085) of Hillsdale, Mo., and a former Southeast Missouri State University student, has been named the 2019 Young Democrat of the Year by the Missouri Democratic Party.
Windham will be recognized and will speak at the Missouri Democratic Partys Truman Dinner at 7 p.m. Aug. 17 at the Sheet Metal Workers Local 36 Grand Hall in St. Louis, Missouri.
He is the youngest black man ever elected to serve in the Missouri House of Representatives as well as the first incoming freshman to serve in caucus leadership.
In Windhams first seven months, he has served as the vice chair of the House Democratic Caucus and served on five committees, including Local Government, Transportation, Elections and Urban Issues. His legislative priorities are primarily community revitalization, increasing access to higher education and criminal justice reform. Before being sworn in, he filed HB498(2019) to modify provisions of Missouri’s A+ Schools program making it a “first dollar” scholarship rather than a “last dollar” scholarship.
Prior to his election into office, Windham was a Neighborhood Leadership Fellow of the University of Missouri Extension in the Greater St. Louis area; a staff assistant in the Washington, D.C. office of former U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill; an Impact Fellow with FOCUS St. Louis; and a temporary in-district assistant with the Missouri Senate.
He is former director of finance and audit with the University City Kiwanis Club and director of civic engagement with Young Voices With Action and has been named to Delux Magazines Emerging 30 Under 30.
Windham was a Southeast student from 2011-2016, majoring in corporate communications with a minor in retail management. He was secretary to the Black Student Union, a Student Government senator representing the former College of Liberal Arts, and a member of the Presidents Task Force on Diversity in Education. He participated in the First Year Leadership Program, the Emerging Leaders program and the Missouri Governors Student Leadership Forum and was awarded the Vice Presidents Distinguished Student Award for creating lasting and positive change in the campus community.
While a Southeast student, Windham served as a student employee in the former office of University Communications and Marketing and was a network operations intern in the pharmaceutical division of Cigna Health Insurance in Ferguson, Missouri.