Bothell Teen Changes Minds And History

A young man from Bothell was singlehandedly responsible for getting Exeter, N.H., to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

New Hampshire is the only state in the nation that doesn't dedicate the day to King, and Gautam Venkatesan said he just didn't think that was right.

So the 18-year-old, attending college-prep classes at Phillips Exeter Academy, set out by foot, phone and bicycle to round up influential endorsements in the nearly all-white township of 13,600.

"I had to do a lot of lobbying, basically," he said in a telephone interview from his dormitory room.

The police chief and others say Venkatesan's work led to a vote by the Board of Selectmen to proclaim the holiday honoring King, as featured in a New York Times front-page article yesterday.

"We're pretty excited for him," his mother, Gita Venkatesan, said. "He always gets deeply involved in everything he does. He's a very high-energy person. And he always wanted to be in a leadership role."

"He's tenacious," added a classmate at Exeter, James Johnson-Piett, whose offhand comment about the lack of a King day led to Venkatesan's work. "For a young man to get the exposure he got and bring attention to a topic like that, I think it's great."

Venkatesan said he was surprised and thrilled with the media attention - not for himself, but for the cause.

"King stood for the purest American distillation of democracy in the 20th century," Venkatesan said.

New Hampshire has a Civil Rights Day. Its supporters say King shouldn't be singled out. Their real motive includes an element of racism, contends Venkatesan.

"I think the views in Bothell are much more, shall we say, open-minded, than they are here," he said. "Coming from Seattle, it certainly is a culture shock."

Next month, he'll testify at the New Hampshire Legislature.

"You know, Gautam's very different," his mother said. "I've always felt that. I think it has something to do with a person's nature when they're born, and I think from encouraging him to do the best he can in everything he does."

Born in India, Venkatesan moved to the United States in infancy and the Seattle area in the fourth grade.

When he played Little League baseball, he made a list of good things to say about each teammate at the awards lunch. He served as Bothell High School's student-body president and was named one of USA Today's top 127 high-school students.

He picks up his room. He's vegetarian. He seems just about perfect except for a little streak of perfectionism and the "astronomical" phone bill from talking to his family.

"My parents are just amazing," Venkatesan said. "I think I get my energy from my mom, and my character from my dad. Well, my character from my mom and dad."

His mother, once a teacher in India, worked her way from clerk to comptroller of Su Development, a limited partnership in Bellevue.

His father, Prasanna Venkatesan, a scientist with a Ph.D. in chemistry from Pennsylvania State University, recently switched careers to financial planning.

Gautam Venkatesan could have taken a full scholarship to any Washington university this year. But he wants to go to the best: Harvard. So he's attending one of the nation's best college-prep schools for a year.

Venkatesan worked as a summer intern last year in the news department at The Seattle Times. He got the job during a public event attended by first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton by asking Times Publisher Frank Blethen, who was presenting him with an award, for a job. On the spot, Blethen said yes.

But Venkatesan doesn't want to be a journalist.

"No. The reason I enjoyed journalism was because in any endeavor, the ability to speak, write and think clearly is invaluable."

His goals are loftier.

"I kind of have a motto, `One person can make a difference.' However that incorporates itself into my life, that will be the case. Whether it be through philanthropy, whether it be through diplomacy, whatever vehicle it might be, I would like to impact civilization for the better."