Can you predict the future by looking at the past? In the yearbooks of some declared and likely major-party presidential candidates, we found a debate champion, varsity athletes, student-government leaders, and a few very enthusiastic music fans (no, we don’t just mean Beto O’Rourke). Here’s a yearbook for the class of 2020.
Joe Biden
Class of 1961
Born in Pennsylvania, he graduated from Catholic prep school Archmere Academy in Claymont, Delaware.
Cory Booker
Class of 1987
Nicknamed “Sugar,” Booker was a varsity football player at Northern Valley Regional High School in Old Tappan, New Jersey.
Pete Buttigieg
Class of 2000
“Mayor Pete” started his political career as class president of South Bend, Indiana’s St. Joseph High School.
Julián Castro
Class of 1992
Castro posed with a very ’90s backdrop at San Antonio’s Thomas Jefferson High School 17 years before he became mayor.
Kirsten Gillibrand
Class of 1984
The future senator, pictured as a sophomore in 1982, would graduate from the Emma Willard School in Troy, New York.
Kamala Harris
Class of 1981
At Westmount High near Montreal, she remembered long-distance phone calls (she’s a California native) and “dancing with super six.” Farewell quote? “Be cool MA YA!”
John Hickenlooper
Class of 1970
“Often seen with a far-away look on his face listening to Neil Young,” begins his yearbook entry from Pennsylvania’s Haverford School.
Jay Inslee
Class of 1969
At Seattle’s Ingraham High School, he played for the state-champion basketball team and was also a quarterback. And he met his future wife, Trudi, there.
Amy Klobuchar
Class of 1978
The Minnesota native was the valedictorian of Wayzata High School in Plymouth, where she was also class secretary and treasurer.
Beto O’Rourke
Class of 1991
O’Rourke, at Virginia’s Woodberry Forest School, quoted hardcore band Rites of Spring: “Now I’m the angry son / Everything I’ve learned was wrong.”
Bernie Sanders
Class of 1959
Brooklyn’s James Madison High School listed “Bernard” Sanders as the captain of the track and cross-country teams.
Donald Trump
Class of 1964
The president’s yearbook from New York Military Academy in Cornwall boasts that he played seven sports and participated in “driver education club.”
Elizabeth Warren
Class of 1966
Her hobbies included student council, “great books club,” Latin Club, and aeronautics club at Oklahoma City’s Northwest Classen High.
Marianne Williamson
Class of 1970
The spiritual guru and author may have never held political office, but she was on the student council at Bellaire High School in Texas.
Andrew Yang
Class of 1992
The entrepreneur looked cool on campus at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire.
Meet the Class of 2020’s Overachievers
*This article appears in the April 1, 2019, issue of New York Magazine. Subscribe Now!
