Finding a path in Graham
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Clark Miracle, of Graham, sits in the office of Lee Boyd, who he has been working with since Summer of 2017. When Miracle came back to Graham, Boyd who served as a councilman on the city of Graham city council, arranged for him to shadow City Manager Brandon Anderson as experience for his possible future in governement. (Leader photo by Thomas Wallner)
For 2015 Graham High School graduate Clark Miracle, coming home was a chance to relax and take his final online Spanish course for the University of Texas in Austin, but also get some perspective on what his future holds.
Miracle met City Councilman Lee Boyd through his mother and began working for him in his independent oil and gas operating business Summer 2017. Miracle gained some knowledge from Boyd which allowed him to gauge his interest in city government.
“In that Summer of 2017 I attended a few city council meetings and that is when I even started considering city government work, so Mr. Boyd kind of introduced me to all that and that was really cool,” he said.
Miracle was going to attend Texas A&M University, but having to be in general engineering for one year and reapplying later to get into the Aerospace Engineering program did not seem favorable, considering he was already accepted into the program at The University of Texas and had a backup plan.
“That’s a sure fire versus having to apply to school twice plus if I wanted to go government, which was always at the back of my mind then UT was right next to the capital and I knew that would have internship opportunities,” he said.
Miracle switching from Engineering to Government allowed him to use his dual credits from North Central Texas College but did set him back one year, he said. Being back in Graham for one semester allowed him to work for Boyd again, who set him up with the opportunity to shadow Graham City Manager Brandon Anderson.
“I went over for an afternoon and I got to talk with him about city government and he toured me all around city hall and introduced me to all those ladies over there and showed me what they did,” he said. “We had the auditors over for the city when I was shadowing that day and I got to see what they did and they talked to me some.”
Miracle also was able to sit in on a meeting of the Graham Conventions and Visitors Bureau Board and sit in on the first meeting regarding the Graham Food Truck Championship of Texas.
“I grew up in Graham and I love Graham a lot and it has basically reaffirmed that I would definitely want to work for a smaller town, instead of something like Austin or Dallas,”
For more from this story see the Wednesday, Jan. 30 edition of The Graham Leader.
