A 2024 Tamaqua Area High School graduate and Harvard College student earned the opportunity to work in the Pennsylvania Department of State’s Office of Policy.

Stephen Behun IV, of Rush Township, secured a prestigious summer internship with the James A. Finnegan Fellowship Foundation.

Through it, Behun assisted with a variety of projects alongside department Director Robert Beecher and Deputy Director Andrew LaFratte.

“The most notable included research related to the recently enacted Nurse Licensure Compact, which allows nurses in Pennsylvania to practice in any other compact state without needing to also obtain a separate license to practice from that state,” Behun said. “It also allows nurses in other compact states to work in Pennsylvania without needing a Pennsylvania license.”

While in Harrisburg, Behun helped create two voter engagement projects that are nearing implementation and attended a number of meetings and events. He noted that the fellowship hosted a speaker series, which included a meeting with the state treasurer and a tour of the state vault.

“It was an amazing opportunity to meet the various people who work not just on the political side of Harrisburg, but also the bureaucratic one,” said Behun, a sophomore at Harvard. “In recent years, especially, there has been a growing distrust in the government, so getting the chance to see how the sausage gets made was not just reassuring, but also eye-opening; it is hard to overstate just how much such a relatively small group of people manage for the commonwealth.”

He found that each person “has a job to do and does it well, and thanks to them the commonwealth is kept a safe, functioning, and ever-improving place to be.”

Behun, who is majoring in chemistry and honors government, noted that the Times News ran a notice about the internships last year.

“A friend of my mum’s read it, and then she forwarded it to my mother because she thought I would be interested,” said Behun, a son of Liz Pinkey, Rush Township, and the late Stephen Behun III.

The James Finnegan Foundation was established to honor the memory of Finnegan, who served as secretary of the commonwealth in the 1950s. The internships are open to college students who have an interest in government and politics.

Behun learned that to apply, he’d have to write an essay that argued against school choice vouchers for private and parochial schools. The topic, he said, was hotly debated during the 2024-25 budget process in Harrisburg.

As one of the student winners, he was assigned to the Office of Policy.

“I have a renewed respect for the people in Harrisburg getting things done not out of sight but often out of mind of the average citizen,” Behun said. “Secretary (Al) Schmidt and his team, including all of the deputy secretaries and directors, are all fantastic people, and it was evident during my time in Harrisburg that they were not only extremely qualified, but also had a deep care for and understanding of the average Pennsylvanian, and their work on policy and programs reflected that.”