Intern of the week

A non-Mainer called up Rebecca McFalls at Sen. Olympia Snowe’s (R-Maine) office to tell her that he had been murdered several times and that the National Security Agency was tapping his phone line. She also hears from a Maine resident who says he has a lumberyard and a rodent problem and complains about the lack of law enforcement in this country.

It’s not unusual for McFalls, 24, to field crazy calls mixed in with the normal folks who phone Capitol Hill offices. McFalls said her main job is to act as a gatekeeper for Snowe’s office, but the senator’s staff tries to give McFalls a variety of different kinds of work.

“It’s been totally different than anything I’ve experienced before,” McFalls said. “I actually live right on the Hill and work on the Hill. … The people are really great; that is the first thing I noticed. Everyone is very intelligent and knows their issues. It was encouraging to me to see [everyone] care like that. ”

In her time off, McFalls spends time with her husband, who is stationed in the Navy in Norfolk, Va. She visits him there, or he comes here and they spend their free time sightseeing.

McFalls took three years off from the University of Maine because she was not sure what she wanted her major to be. Eventually, she chose to seek a degree in journalism with a concentration in advertising. Her minors are public relations and political science. She plans to graduate in May 2007.

During those three years, McFalls left Maine and lived with her husband in Norfolk. In Virginia, McFalls worked for a land-surveying company as a receptionist.