By Trevor Kraus, Managing Editor

One of the most thankless tasks in America belongs to Evan Kemp. It’s lonely, physically grueling, and doesn’t pay well. In fact, other than gas reimbursement, it doesn’t pay at all.

And yet, Evan Kemp, of Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, attacks that task with everything he’s got. The task Evan has volunteered for is to “table,” hoping to spread SFL’s presence to more college campuses, and to create more conversations among young people about the ideas of free markets and liberty.

“Spread” is the operative word. The Show-Me State is not the biggest in the country, but it’s far from the smallest. At 69,715 square miles, it’s actually bigger than Florida and close to the size of countries like Uruguay and Cambodia.

No one knows that better than Evan. During just the second semester of the 2025-26 school year, he’s visited 11 college campuses in Missouri, including six during his one-week-long Spring Break. And they are spread out, all across the state.

To be clear: Evan has driven, solo, in his 2011 Honda Accord, to all 11 of those campuses. And he’s just getting started.

“I like driving,” he said when I met him at Harris-Stowe State University in St. Louis. He had just been at East Central Community College in Union, MO, and Jefferson Community College in Hillsboro. (I’ve lived in St. Louis most of my life and had never heard of either — let alone been to them. They are well off the beaten trail.)

“I put on history podcasts and learn things along the way. But yeah, it does get lonely and it can be a grind. And I wouldn’t even know where to start adding up my total mileage,” he chuckled.

“But it’s worth it if I can make one person into a classical liberal. Besides, I really like being at community colleges. They’re laid back, a little more approachable than big campuses … and it’s easier to find parking,” he laughed. “Strategically, too, students from small colleges often transfer to bigger schools. So if they continue hosting events with SFL there … well, that could be a snowball effect for us.”

Evan, who stands 6’3, was homeschooled in Bolivar, MO before attending McPherson College in a neighboring state. He transferred to Westminster when he felt his career was over.

“I miss playing football,” he said. “But working with SFL, tabling all over the place, starting conversations with people … that has filled the void.”

He estimates he’s had meaningful interactions with more than 300 students along the way, and collected more than 100 email addresses (so far) of people who might want to learn more about liberty, host a debate about current events, or raise awareness about an on-campus issue that conflicts with individual liberty. One of Evan’s go-to stories when describing Students For Liberty’s impact is that of SFLers overturning a University of Tennessee ban on pepper spray.

Read more: A Battle for Campus Self-Defense Rights

Of course, those numbers omit the most brutal part of tabling — one of the most brutal parts of the human condition, in fact: being ignored.

“You get used to it,” he said, “because there’s no way around it. I can say hello to people, offer them a free sticker, or ask what issues they’re passionate about, and most of them are going to pretend they don’t hear me. I appreciate when someone at least says, ‘No thank you’ or ‘I’m in a rush,’ but usually, they just bury their heads in their phones.”

On the other hand, when I saw him in St. Louis, he had a different problem altogether: His Ron Paul stickers had gone like hotcakes; Evan had run out of them!

“It’s 10 minutes of big activity, when people are going to and from class,” he said. “And then maybe two people come by over the next hour, and I’m just standing here.” (And he ALWAYS stands, by the way; he feels it comes across as more professional than sitting.)

“My first tabling experience was for the Chase Oliver campaign,” he continued. “And I learned a lot, but I never felt like people took a third-party candidate seriously. And I wanted to be taken seriously. I wanted to find ways you can push for freedom without just running for office or supporting some candidate. That’s what I’ve found with SFL. Sometimes we talk politics, yeah … but mostly, it’s about ideas. Presenting good ideas in a professional way.”

And those ideas he cherishes — the ideas of classical liberalism — were instilled in him even before he was born. Evan’s pregnant mother was once left to fend for herself on the side of the road after Evan’s father was pulled over and arrested on an expired warrant for a charge that turned out to be fabricated and false.

“My mom has always been upset by that,” Evan said. “So ever since, making sure police and government follow the rule of law as well, not just citizens — and cutting down on police corruption especially — has been important to me. That was my entry point into libertarianism, and it’s something I want people to think more about.”

As of March 2026, there were 67 colleges and universities in Missouri. From a town of 10,000, just north of Springfield and south of the Ozarks that was named after Simon Bolivar — the liberator who led six countries to independence — Evan Kemp is on his way to getting young people at every single one of them to think more about law, and corruption, and liberty, too.