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2004 Boys Nation President Riley Harvell reflects on his experiences.

Riley Harvell didn’t necessarily intend to share his past achievement when he joined the American Legion Boys Nation staff as a senior counselor last summer.

But 20 years after Harvell was elected Boys Nation president, he did eventually let the senators of Madison Section know that their senior counselor had once been where they were.

“I had (2023 Boys Nation President) David Daniel as a junior counselor too in my section,” Harvell said. “We kind of started the week as, we’re just senior counselors and junior counselors.”

But just before the presidential election at Boys Nation, won by Madison Section senator Morgan Johnson of Oklahoma, Harvell said “we shared with him, you actually have two counselors that are former Boys Nation presidents.”

Harvell did share the news that he was returning to Boys Nation in a Facebook post before heading to the program at Marymount University in Arlington, Va., in July.

“I had (Boys Nation) senators from 2004 reach out on the post and we shared some stories and reminisced about the old times. And then one of them pointed out that it was exactly two decades ago, which at that point everyone got really quiet,” Harvell joked.

Once word was out, Harvell shared with the senators of 2024 Boys Nation how the events of 2004 shaped his life.

“As I came to Boys Nation, I had my life plan — as all the senators seem to have their life plan before them — I knew where I was going and what I wanted to accomplish, and coming to Boys Nation really solidified to me that the military was going to be a piece of it,” said Harvell, a Marine Corps veteran. “The presidency of Boys Nation and the experiences that followed the following year really kind of shaped that.”

Harvell’s plan was to go into politics, but upon returning from deployment and unable to find a job, a connection from South Carolina’s Palmetto Boys State program — where Harvell has been involved for 20 years, first as a delegate, then on staff — ended up shaping his professional career.

“He knew I was looking for a job, asked if I had logistics experience. Well, I went to school for political science; that was my life plan, I’m going the political route. And when I enlisted in the reserves, they don’t give you a choice about your job, you just take whatever the unit closest to you is, so I ended up as a logistics Marine. So I did all my time there, got formally trained in logistics, so that opportunity opened up. Now I’m 17 years in the logistics industry, that’s where my life ended up.

“Boys State, Boys Nation, have shaped pretty much everything,” he said.

And Harvell emphasized to this year’s senators that “the week that shapes a lifetime” comes from both success and failure.

“I prefaced the week, with the section, that they were going to be challenged, because they’re probably used to being the best at everything they do, and they’re going to run for offices, they’re going to try to pass legislation, they’re going to want to get to the front of the line at the food court, whatever it is and they’re not going to be successful, because they’re surrounded by 100 of the best kids that are just as good if not better at that thing than they are,” he said. “… From my Boys Nation year, looking 20 years into their future, that what I see is — I was president, and I’ve accomplished the things that I’ve accomplished in life — but there are 99 other stories from my year that didn’t end in failure because they weren’t elected president.

“What I told the senators was whether they’re successful, or whether they fail in their endeavors, they need to learn, they need to grow, because their story’s not over. And I can look back 20 years and see the major successes that senators that fell flat on their face at Boys Nation, that they’ve gone on to accomplish because they didn’t give up. I think that’s really important, whether it’s Boys State and you don’t win mayor, or it’s Boys Nation and you lose the president’s race. It’s a moment in time, and it’s an opportunity to learn and grow.”