Kevin Reilly, UF Student Body presidential candidate with the Gator Party, got his first title - "Mayor Seaford" - when he was 2.
Reilly's family gave him the nickname because he constantly introduced himself to neighbors in his hometown of Seaford on Long Island, N.Y.
Since then, he served as Palm Harbor University High School's senior-class vice president from, and he has been Student Senate president since fall.
"I guess I was born for it," Reilly said. "It comes down to helping people."
He said he's learned most from working in Senate since his freshman year.
"You can read as many books on legislature as you want but never learn until you sit down with 94 people and hammer out a piece of legislature," he said.
He said internships with U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson and the Pinellas County Commission have also enriched his love for politics.
"It's really sad because politics has such a terrible stigma," he said. "But at the end of the day, it's about making the world a better place."
Yooni Yi
Yooni Yi, the Gator Party's vice presidential candidate, said she knew she was meant to help people when she first saw a baby being born.
Yi, a UF exercise physiology junior, said that's where she likes to be - right in the action.
"It interests me more than creeps me out," said Yi, who saw the birth while on a mission trip in Peru. "There are no words for it."
She also taught hygiene programs to people in the Andes mountains in Ecuador and designed exercises to help them prevent manual-labor injuries.
Yi is currently studying Parkinson's disease with researchers at UF and said she hopes to go to medical school.
As Student Body vice-presidential hopeful, she said she "really wants to reach out to students."
"Working with others, you learn something new every day," Yi said.
"You know, doctors need to be leaders, too."
Paul Drayton
After sausage links, eggs and grits, and two hours of e-mail responding, Paul Drayton is ready to put on one of his 30 ties.
Drayton, a UF finance senior and the Gator Party's candidate for SG treasurer, said he has long been drawn to business and finances, and he likes to dress the part.
He said he earned his first paycheck as a 15-year-old Publix grocery bagger.
"A job makes you squeeze out every penny and teaches you to save," he said, glancing at the resume he never leaves home without.
For his next job at the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office's evidence room, he said he designed a new inventory program for evidence in the drug vault.
But it always came back to money.
In fall 2005, he said he joined UF Student Senate and got his feet wet in the budget committee. He's now the budget chairman.
"You could say I like money," Drayton said.
"And making sure people are being financially responsible."
