By way of participation in various youth government simulations I rose to a kind of statewide power intense enough that I would be recognized by other students from the opposite side of the state, and frequently on the streets of the larger cities in the region.

I took this as far as I could, eventually being selected to lead a national version of the youth/gov't simulation which was so popular where I grew up.

This was completely ephemeral, and had little influence on my regular life, where I was nothing special, always second to someone's thunder and never really the center of any social group. I was between them all and frankly a bit lost and lonely.

Put me in front of a crowd of two thousand strangers and I can move many and make a not insignificant number of them cry with joy and feeling. This is a skill I have never found use for, and never exercised since, but it is still there, waiting for the right moment.

So I never was quite popular, in the local sense. But maybe this helped me stay me and get out of the tiny city I grew up in. There was less to stick around for. I'm not sure if this made me a popular one, but it sure was interesting.