A second-year Spanish education student won a seat on the Anne Arundel County Democratic Central Committee in July.

Nineteen-year-old AACC student Board of Trustees member Conor Curran has represented more than 140,000 county residents on the District 31 committee since December 2021, when he was appointed to fill a midterm vacancy on the panel.

“I always believe in fresh blood,” Curran, who also serves as executive vice president of the AACC Student Government Association, said. “That’s really important … because people can get stuck in a certain mindset, and without fresh blood, you don’t get a new opinion, or a new perspective about something that’s happening.”

Curran represented more than 80,000 students as the secretary of education for the Chesapeake Regional Association of Student Councils during his freshman year of high school in 2017 and served as the chair of the Anne Arundel County Youth Advisory Council from 2020-2022.

AACC President Dawn Lindsay called Curran a “superstar,” saying he is “clearly … somebody who is going places.”

“He’s very unassuming,” Lindsay said. “But he’s a really good leader. I think that’s probably why he’s been so successful. … He’s really stepped up … at a pretty early age. So I think he’s destined for great things.”

Sandra Moore, chair of AACC’s Board of Trustees, agreed, describing Curran as “confident,” saying he clearly knows what he’s doing in his work with the board.

“It was obvious that he understood his role and very much impressed me with his desire to help the college,” Moore said.

Curran, who was an SGA senator last year, said he started his journey as a civil servant when he became a part of the student government at Old Mill Middle School North.

Curran said his motivation for joining the middle school group was to have a say in how education funds are used.

“I just want to be able to help my community where I can,” Curran said, “to make sure that what we are doing is being done in an equitable way to where people understand what’s going on, and not use this large mumbo jumbo, to where people just don’t understand what is going on, [and what] their tax dollars are going towards.”

Still, Curran said he doesn’t see himself having a career in politics.

“I don’t have any plans,” Curran said. “I just want to go be a Spanish teacher.”

From politics and policy-making to school and his job at Dunkin’, Curran stressed the importance of time management for students with busy schedules

“Carve out time to be able to do your homework and stuff like that,” Curran said. “Even if you have a morning and afternoon class, do it in between.”