Libby Kimzey may not have her undergraduate degree yet, but she could be on her way to a seat in Rhode Island’s House of Representatives. As of today, she is officially a candidate for the District 8 seat where Representative Mike Tarro, a first-termer, currently resides.

Originally admitted in the class of ’09, Kimzey has since taken off several semesters to lobby and organize for political groups in the state.

Kimzey started lobbying for Rhode Islanders for Fair Elections in Spring ’09. At the time, “there were certainly some people that didn’t take me seriously because…I was 19 years old,” Kimzey said. Later, when she worked as campaign manager for Teresa A. Tanzi (D-34, Narragansett, South Kingstown), she helped unseat one of those representatives, David Caprio.

Working on the Tanzi campaign has taught Kimzey to effectively communicate the issues, even to people who might not agree with her, she said. “She’s been my role model in a lot of ways,” Kimzey said. Tanzi’s campaign proved that to take on an incumbent, “You have to work in coalition and you have to start early and you have to think about your resources.” [Read more →]

According to recent statistics about the comparative health of the 50 states, Rhode Island pulled in at number 10 — not bad for the state constantly heralded for unemployment and child poverty. However, “binge drinking is a problem” and the state’s “forte is smoking.” And what percent of those studied were college students?

Gallup just completed its annual state-of-the-states poll, rating all 50 using a highly calibrated Well-Being Index. Hawaii won (seriously? They should be disqualified.); West Virginia came in last (maybe that’s just what you get for being an off-shoot of a state).

And Rhode Island didn’t perform too shabbily, coming in at 40th place. As the smallest state in the nation, we’ll take what we can get.

But the real kicker was the city-by-city analysis. Providence ranked as the second-worst on the well-being chart. To make matters worse, it was our emotional health scores that brought us down.

We’re just speculating, but this could be a reason the Brown girls are feeling emotionally … burdened.