When Shaun Doherty isn’t listening to lectures, writing papers or taking tests, he can usually be found doing campaign work: distributing fliers, setting up events, making phone calls and recruiting supporters.

Doherty, a college student from Pelham, is a volunteer for Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign – one of hundreds of young people who are putting their efforts behind the candidate they believe in during the 2008 presidential contest.

His efforts to help the Arizona Republican win the White House extend far beyond his hometown. Doherty is the campaign’s New Hampshire youth chairman, a position he was invited to take on last spring.

“My role, really by definition, is to recruit college students, to make sure they learn about Sen. McCain, they (come) to an event, they get to meet him,” Doherty said. “To make sure around the state we have an organization at all our colleges. A good, working students’ organization.”

Students have been encouraged to bring other students to campaign events, help events run smoothly and call voters at local phone banks.

New Hampshire’s presidential primary comes early this season – it will be held Tuesday, Jan. 8 – and lands in the middle of winter break for college students. But the campaign is encouraging students to devote a week to 10 days of their time leading up to the primary and will arrange for supporters to house them, Doherty said.

Doherty is a 2006 graduate of Pelham High School, where he served as class president, and is currently a sophomore communications major at Rivier College in Nashua. After graduating, he wants to work professionally to help campaigns and candidates get their message out.

He got interested in politics early. In 1999, when he was only 11, Doherty met McCain, then seeking the 2000 Republican nomination, in a Derry gymnasium. He’s admired him since, and decided to back him this year.

“I did look at some other candidates, but I believe Sen. McCain is the guy who can lead from day one,” said Doherty. “He’s the guy with that experience. I wasn’t really feeling it for some of the other candidates.” Doherty doesn’t agree with McCain on every issue – no one will find a candidate they completely agree with, he said – but he believes in him enough to make some personal and financial sacrifices.

Doherty spends gas money and sometimes grabs meals on the road while helping the campaign, and he doesn’t always get enough sleep.

During a recent evening at a campaign event in Bedford, Mc- Cain addressed a few hundred people.

Doherty was there, wearing a campaign sticker on his lapel and bringing a microphone to some of the voters. A mother of four wanted to know what McCain will do to boost the economy. A man asked why the problem of illegal immigration has dragged on for so long. A group of reporters and cameramen watched from the back of the room.

Doherty donates about four nights a week to the campaign. He’s got a McCain bumper sticker on his 2000 Mercury Sable and put a campaign sign on his parents’ lawn.

“Shaun’s hard work and dedication has been invaluable to our efforts to identify and activate young people into a growing grassroots organization on behalf of John McCain in New Hampshire,” said press secretary Barry Flynn.

Doherty knows New Hampshire’s primary is influential. Its results will affect the presidential contest.

“You do feel you’re part of history,” he said.

After he completes his last final exam for the semester on Dec. 14, Doherty will commit to the campaign full time until school resumes.

One of his duties will be to help promote a planned appearance by the candidate at Pelham High School on Wednesday, Dec. 19, the day coincidentally, Doherty turns 20.