Named a "Rising Star" in the national political scene in 2004 by Campaigns & Elections Magazine, Amanda Dalton recently entered into a contract to provide government and public affairs service for the Willamette Valley Realtors Association, one of the largest membership organizations in the state.

Dalton, 24, is working as a lobbyist for the association to monitor local government and help the organization build grass roots. She has been spending time across the district assessing the needs of the Realtor groups that make up the association and will eventually meet with local and state elected officials to discuss the organization's involvement in local government.

Dalton, who grew up in Albany and graduated from West Albany High School in 1997, has been active in government and political affairs since high school. As a member of West's Youth and Government Club, she served as governor in 1997 for the 50th anniversary of the Oregon YMCA Youth and Government Mock Legislature — the first student from West Albany to be elected governor at the event. Dalton represented Oregon's Youth and Government at a weeklong conference in June 1997 in Washington, D.C., and signed bills passed during the mock legislature in former Gov. John Kitzhaber's office.

In 1997, while still in high school, Dalton worked on a campaign for the Linn County Law Lobby. She enjoyed the campaign so much, she has been running campaigns and working in government and political affairs since.

Her resume includes working as a Republican Party fund-raiser and as an assistant to two legislators in both houses of state government. She also worked for the state House majority leader and was elected chair of the Linn County Republican Central Committee in 2000.

She founded Direct Northwest in 2001. Her work in the Legislature helped her realize that there was a need for new, young consultants, and she believed that it was an area she could contribute to.

During the 2004 campaign, she worked on City Councilman-elect Jeff Christman's campaign as well as Bill Colburn's city council campaign.

"Albany City Council race was exciting because I did what I've been doing at the state level," Dalton said. "A lot of it was providing information to voters in a creative way, and it's hard to break through sometimes on the local races."

Until last fall, all the campaigns Dalton had worked on had been Oregon-based campaigns. Dalton had the opportunity to work on three state senate campaigns for the State Employees Association of North Carolina.

Dalton will attend George Fox University starting this month.