A former OU student in his mid-20s wearing dark-framed glasses sits at the checkered table in Hideaway Pizza on Buchanan Avenue in Norman, quietly scribbling on a legal notepad.

A silver Macbook sits under his briefcase, which contains a stack of voter registration forms. A handful of maps, including one of the ward borders in Norman, is piled on top of the forms.

At 26, Stephen Tyler Holman is the youngest candidate in the March 1 city council election.

“I think nationally we have seen an increase in youth interest in our political system and our governing process, and I think more young people have realized that they can have an impact if they get involved in it,” Holman said.

Holman worked for the OU football team, which required him to become a student at the university, where he was enrolled for the 2006-2007 school year. Holman said he is working to pay off his student loans before he returns for another semester.

Holman has worked at The Deli on White Street in Norman and Hideaway Pizza, where he’s been a cook on and off for about four years and organizes the music venue board.

Holman’s boss at Hideaway, Kevin Taylor, said in the four years he has known him, Holman has become more outspoken the more he is involved with the community.

“He’s young; he’s got a good attitude and a good voice,” Taylor said. “He’s not scared to speak to people and I just think he’d be good for the position.”

Whittier Middle School principal Holly Swanson had Holman as a student when she taught seventh-grade English at Irving Middle School and has stayed in touch with him in the 15 years since.

Swanson said while in her class, “Tyler,” as he was called, was an enthusiastic and driven student whose interest in local government began as part of his eighth-grade U.S. history class.

“At the level we teach at middle school you hope you’re getting them excited about things that are going to make a difference in their lives, and Tyler is definitely an example that can and did happen,” Swanson said.

Holman said he is running because he believes Norman has so much to offer.

Norman has a major university, the National Weather Center, promising local businesses and a well-known music scene, as well as an active city government, Holman said.

Partly because of his job at OU, Holman said he has traveled to almost all of continental U.S. except the Northwest. He has been to Los Angeles four times and drove cross-country to Washington, D.C., for the 2008 presidential inauguration with a friend.

However, he said Norman always would be his home base.

“I mean, I love traveling and seeing a bunch of new places, and I really want to go to other parts of the world and visit but having my base in Norman,” Holman said. “I can come back here; I know every inch of this city — I know this metro area, I know the people here; I’m just very familiar with everything.”