At age 21, UW-La Crosse student Josh Gran was voted to be the mayor of Caledonia, Minnesota. This is a huge accomplishment for anyone, let alone someone so young and still in college. Gran presides over his mayoral duties while taking classes. He has stated that he’s always been interested in politics, something that lead to his eventual decision to run for mayor. He’s also said that his dad was a huge influence on him, and his parents and family are very supportive of his accomplishments.

In recent statements, Gran has expressed his desire to work with the school system and make it the best it can be. This is close to home for Gran since  he recently graduated in the spring of 2011.

In high school, he was very active in athletics. He was the quarterback on his high school football team, and there are multiple sports articles detailing his success online and in Caledonia newspapers. His team even won the state championship during his senior year. Gran attributes his successful leadership skills that lead to winning the election in part to his time on the football team.

The UW-L student isn’t just sitting back, though. He’s taken it upon himself to learn about the politics of Caledonia and what makes it such a great place to live. Gran understands that keeping taxes low is important to the people in his hometown and that it’s crucial to keep them as low as possible. He’s currently majoring in economics, and he believes that knowledge will only help him with this tax endeavor and other monetary issues in the future.

While taxes and education are important to him, he isn’t stopping there. Caledonia boasts a population of just under 3000 people. After receiving 65 percent of the vote from his hometown, Gran decided he wants to help increase the economy by bringing new businesses to the town. Nothing has been officially released yet on whether he has achieved this.

Gran decided to run for mayor when he heard that the previous mayor was not going to run again. With the support of his classmates and teammates, he ran for the position. Fortunately for him, he also ran unopposed, as no one else had completed the papers in time. He faced some difficulty against one other write-in candidate but overcame him in the end. Gran began his position at the beginning of this year on Jan. 1 and has held the position dutifully since then.

Even though the position of mayor is now under his belt, Gran isn’t stopping there. He plans to continue running for governmental positions, possibly for statewide or U.S. offices. It’s possible that the future president may have been a UW-La Crosse graduate.