It has been one year since the world lost Charlie Kirk, and the nightmare has not been lifted. I still reach for words that do not exist. Being in Charlie Kirk’s presence was not like being around most people in politics. When he spoke to a room, they hung on every word. When Charlie made a promise, large or small, he kept it. For the early years of Turning Point USA, I worked beside him when almost no one knew his name. That proximity still feels like a privilege I did not fully understand until he was gone.

I first heard of Charlie Kirk on May 7, 2015, in a Bloomberg article called “This Boy Wonder Is Building the Conservative MoveOn.org.” I was a recent Flagler College graduate working on Lenny Curry’s mayoral campaign in Jacksonville. The article inspired me to search his name on YouTube and watch some of his speeches. Everyone who ever worked with Charlie remembers the first time they heard him speak. I went to the Turning Point USA website (still a .net address then) and found seventeen job openings. I applied to all of them.

A few days later, Charlie called, with one of his early staffers on the line with him. They were impressed not only by my application but also by the fact that I had applied for every single opening. I told them I did not care which door I walked through. I only wanted in. At 22 years old, I believed this was my chance at the American Dream.

We talked for maybe ninety minutes. Our conversation covered economic theory, education, the 2016 field, and who we each supported. Then he offered me my choice of the seventeen cities. I was born in Northeast Florida, but Ohio was the place my family came from. My parents were born and educated there. My grandparents, cousins, aunts, and uncles still lived there. My older brother had already moved back after graduating from Case Western. I asked to move home to Ohio. So I loaded my 2006 Hyundai Sonata with everything I owned and left Florida with less than $2,000 in the bank. I was determined to help Charlie change the Republican Party, the conservative movement, and the country.

(Photo via Thomas Hern)

Friends and family thought I was crazy. I was abandoning the prospects of law school and employment opportunities within the Florida GOP to follow an unknown 20-year-old who had little backing and no formal education, when I was two years older and had already graduated from college. Charlie........

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