Leesa Danzek While her peers are lounging poolside or tanning at the beach this summer, Leesa Danzek will be suiting up in a navy blazer and tie and working on Capitol Hill as a congressional page.

While that might not sound like an ideal summer vacation to the average teen, Leesa couldn’t imagine anything better.

Just thinking of returning to the top of the Washington Monument makes the 16-year-old giddy.

“Just to look out from the different windows and see everything in D.C . . . it’s cool to see everything together,” said the Simi Valley resident and soon-tobe Oak Park High School senior. “The history of the United States kind of rests in one location.”

Leesa’s had a passion for politics for a long time. In fact, when she was 9 years old, the vegetarian, who stopped eating meat when she was 4, decided she was going to lobby her congressman to oppose animal testing. So she told her friends that her mom would chaperone the trip. Then she emailed her friends’ moms, pretending to be her own mother.

When Leesa’s mother, Cindy Danzek, started getting calls asking how much spending money the girls would need and who was paying for the hotel, she discovered her daughter’s secret plan.

Leesa was promptly banned from the computer. But a few months later, when her mom had a family function in Maryland, the young Leesa got her wish. She’s been hooked on Capitol Hill ever since.

And her family can vouch for her devotion.

“She breathes Washington, D.C. She’s a freak about trivia— Washington, D.C., trivia, Benjamin Franklin trivia,” her mom said.

“I ask, like, ‘Who’s the third president?’ And she goes on and on for an hour,” Leesa’s 10-yearold sister, Piper, said.

When asked why she loves D.C. so much, Leesa said it’s the history of the place.

“We went on a tour of the Capitol when I was 9, and you walk through these little back halls that are probably no more than 5 feet tall, and just to think the people who founded the nation walked those, literally, it gave me goose bumps,” she said. “People who basically founded democracy and the New World walked where I was walking.”

Long desiring to “change the world through politics,” Leesa got a chance to do just that during last year’s race for the Simi Valley City Council when she helped campaign for her longtime neighbor and now mayor, Bob Huber. She was one of the youngest on the team, but she was committed, passing out fliers and making house calls from Republican headquarters.

She even jumped on board U.S. Rep. Elton Gallegly’s successful campaign for reelection. It was Huber who told Leesa about the U.S. House of Representatives’ page program, and she learned more while stomping the pavement for Gallegly. With a letter of recommendation from Huber and a nomination from the congressman, she applied for the program. Earlier this month she was picked by the speaker of the House to be one of 72 pages.

Leesa’s sister broke the news while the family was on their way to a school event.

“I said, ‘You got it. You got that thingy in Washington,’” Piper recalled.

“I ran screaming out the front door,” Leesa said.

Leesa left for Washington, D.C., on Wednesday and will spend the next six weeks working with other House pages to assist members with their legislative duties, deliver correspondence and small packages within the congressional complex, answer phones in the member cloakrooms and prepare the House floor for sessions.

“You sit in on a majority of meetings,” Leesa said. “You just kind of shadow them, and it’s a combination of doing stuff for them and watching how they do it and how they run the country.”

While serving in the House, hall a few blocks from the Capitol. She will also attend a government class at the page school in the Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress each morning before work.

Leesa’s parents, Tom and Cindy, are proud and pleased that their daughter has been given this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

“ I want her to spread her wings and really learn a lot and take advantage of the opportunity, and I know she’ll really have a lot to offer them because she’s such a hard worker,” her mom said.

Leesa said she’s looking forward most to experiencing government in action and watching the nation’s leaders at work.

“There’s only a certain amount of information and facts you can learn or be tested on at school. But it’s a whole different level to see how it actually happens.”

Besides her political zeal, Leesa is a star student and dedicated volunteer. She started a Cell Phones for Soldiers program in sixth grade, collects towels and blankets for animal shelters, and encourages donations to charities in lieu of birthday gifts. The Key Club member even cooked hamburgers for Special Olympics participants.

Leesa doesn’t have senioritis; she’s focused on her future. While she does envision herself one day being elected to Congress, the “football junkie” and Green Bay Packers fan first wants to become a sports agent.

She hopes to attend the University of Tennessee or University of Arizona to major in sports management or in business with an emphasis in sports. Then she intends to go to law school— preferably at Stanford or Duke— to become a sports attorney.

But Leesa is open to other possibilities. She and her mother had an appointment on Thursday, her second day in D.C., at Georgetown University.

Tom Danzek said Leesa’s take- charge personality was evident early.

“When she was a little baby, the doctor told us, ‘You’re going to have your hands full with this one.’”