My journey into politics began during my senior year of high school, when 17 people were killed at a suburban high school in Florida just like mine. My friends and I began using social media to organize, our groupchat quickly ballooned to hundreds of members and on the National Day of Action we led walkouts at 30 St. Louis Area schools that culminated in a protest outside of then-Attorney General Josh Hawley’s office in Downtown Saint Louis. The Washington Post sent their White House correspondent out to Saint Louis to follow us around and document our plans and intention to help re-elect Sen. Claire McCaskill.

The Washington Post LINK: With an eye on November, students and well-funded groups are teaming up on gun regulation

They want to protest at the office of Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley, a candidate in the Republican primary who hopes to unseat Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.).

“Our idea is that right now Josh Hawley is the Republican front-runner, and that by doing this we may be able to help Claire McCaskill maintain her seat in the Senate,” said Brian Wingbermuehle, 18, a senior at Rockwood Summit High in Fenton, Mo. “She’s a lot better on guns.”

Around this time I wrote my first Op-ed in TeenVogue before jumping on Cort VanOstran’s historic campaign to unseat Rep. Ann Wagner(R-MO-2). VanOstran lost with the slimmest margin of any Democrat against Wagner.

After November of 2018 I would go on to touch a dozen campaigns from County Council and Alderman to State Senate. in 2019 I returned to NARAL Pro-Choice Missouri to lead the effort to expand Medicaid via ballot initiative in Missouri. Under my leadership, Pro-Choice Missouri increased their signature gathering capacity by 5x from the previous initiative petition campaigns.

In 2020 I decided to run for local office in West Saint Louis County and won. I was named one of the 30 Most Influential People in Missouri Politics under 30 by the Missouri Times, at age 20. This position also led to to Saint Louis County’s redistricting commission. I was the youngest person ever appointed to this commission in county history, which then led to my second piece to be published in TeenVogue about how critical this often overlooked process is.

TeenVogue LINK: Redistricting in 2021 Will Be Unfair Unless Voters Get Involved

Here in St. Louis County, I will be the youngest person ever appointed to help redraw our seven council districts. The county executive appoints one Democrat and one Republican from each of the districts to work on this process. A map needs 9 votes of the 14 members to win approval. But for the past 30 years, Democrats and Republicans have failed to come to an agreement, and the parties have filed lawsuits, leaving the courts to determine the final shape of the maps.

Every local and state map should be a mix of three things: compactness, fairness, and representation. Are the districts adjoining and compact? Are elections between parties free and competitive? Are the maps using the power of redistricting to dilute someone’s political power? These are the questions I’ll be asking when we sit down to draw the maps for St. Louis County’s Bipartisan Reapportionment Commission.

In April of 2020, right as the pandemic hit the midwest, I decided to take on a passion project of mine, and founded the Missouri Biodiversity Project, a conservation based 501C3 organization dedicated to combatting the loss of biodiversity through cultivation and restoration projects.

Today, I still work at Pro-Choice Missouri, helping to elect Pro-Choice leaders across the state and track legislation in Jefferson City and Washington. I serve as Executive Director of the MBP, and Represent parts of South and West St. Louis County on the Democratic Central Committee.