Applicant #1: Lee Taylor

Lee Taylor is a 24-year-old from Florence.

Lee's video application:

Lee online:

+ Twitter
+ Facebook
+ Facebook page

Lee's current situation:

I am 24 years old and living in Florence, Alabama. I currently work as a front desk clerk at a hotel and am an active musician in town. I graduated from UNA last year with a Bachelor's in Commercial Music and got engaged last month to my favorite person in the world.

Lee's blog post:

When you think about the current generation of young people in America, what comes to mind? What image of one of these individuals pops into your head? Perhaps an image of a young professional with his shirt newly pressed and his windsor knot ready for the work day ahead. Perhaps it's a reclusive teen sitting in the mall in her non-comformist hoodie, dyed-black hair and earbuds blasting Norwegian death metal to help her escape a consumeristic society. Or maybe it's just a guy in his undershirt with a hole in it, glued to his laptop at midnight on his couch eating potato chips (no one in particular, of course). Do you see a group of people that knows the value of a dollar? or do you see our cell phones, cars and designer clothing draining our pocket books? Do you see intelligence paired with sophistication or low test scores paired with negligence?

Whatever perception fits you best, there is one thing that cannot be denied to my generation, and that is its own potential. Without a doubt, we are the most capable, the best educated, and the most accessible group of young people the world has ever seen. Our parents could not have dreamed of going to college from their homes or video chatting with their friends in another state. The technology available to us now was only seen in Star Trek before we came along to make it a reality. We have the world at our fingertips and an overwhelming amount of opportunities to invest our time and finances in the right places. Perhaps most importantly, we have more of a chance at doing what matters to us for a living than any other generation before us. If you like to blog about finances, make awesome videos, and hang out with young people, it turns out that you can do it for a living!

It's crucial that we give ourselves credit and know what kind of potential we really have. We have an amazing opportunity as young people to make a lasting impact on Alabama and to shake off any suspicions that we are not worth our title. This all starts with our decisions: decisions we make about our time, our finances and our futures. With the world at our fingertips, we are presented with countless ways to waste all three of these elements every day.

With such great potential, let's use these amazing resources for our good, instead of letting them use us. Instead of being sucked into the apps that tell us what to buy, let's find some that tell us where to save. Instead of spending hours on Facebook gossiping about our friends, let's use it to reconnect with the ones we don't see. Little decisions like these can go a long way, hopefully setting the course for us to meet that great potential we have set for ourselves.

Lee