The Inauguration, Part 1: Gabi and Lauren Go to Washington

By Sharon Lakey

On Jan­u­ary 20, 2008, the world’s eyes will be turned on Wash­ing­ton DC as Barack Oba­ma is sworn in as the 44^th Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States. Two Danville high school stu­dents will be there in per­son. Gabi Potts, senior, and Lau­ren Peter­son, fresh­man, have been plan­ning this adven­ture long before they knew the his­toric mag­ni­tude of the event.

Gabi came to it through a pro­gram called The Pres­i­den­tial Class­room. Its mis­sion has been to pro­vide out­stand­ing high school stu­dents with a first-class civic edu­ca­tion using Wash­ing­ton DC as a class­room. The pro­gram was cre­at­ed in 1968 when a strong youth voice sur­faced in Amer­i­ca. Hav­ing attend­ed one of their week­long insti­tutes in Wash­ing­ton, Gabi received a post­card in July that list­ed the inau­gu­ra­tion as one of the upcom­ing events. She applied online and was selected. 

Lau­ren came to it through anoth­er door—the Nation­al Young Lead­ers State Con­fer­ence (NYLSC). This group’s goal is to fos­ter and inspire young lead­ers. It was found­ed 23 years ago and tai­lors pro­grams to spe­cif­ic age groups. Hav­ing been through that train­ing in Cam­bridge MA, she received a let­ter in June telling her of the inau­gu­ra­tion oppor­tu­ni­ty. Like Gabi, she jumped at the idea.

Inter­est­ing­ly, the girls come from oppo­site sides of the polit­i­cal spec­trum. Gabi, though a stat­ed inde­pen­dent, tends toward the more lib­er­al, Demo­c­ra­t­ic point of view; Lau­ren comes from the Repub­li­can. After grad­u­a­tion, Gabi hopes to major in aero­space engi­neer­ing and minor in pol­i­tics and has her fin­gers crossed on accep­tance into a major uni­ver­si­ty. Lau­ren, with three years left in high school, is focused on build­ing her skills as a stu­dent leader. 

This sum­mer, as part of her senior project, Gabi received an edu­ca­tion in door-to-door pol­i­tick­ing when she helped Jane Kitchell and Kit­ty Toll with their re-elec­tion bids. “I, per­son­al­ly, knocked on 100 doors,” says Gabi. She was more in tune with Hillary Clinton’s cam­paign at that time, as she is espe­cial­ly con­cerned with women’s issues. Lau­ren says she was focused more on McCain’s poli­cies. “Prob­a­bly, I was influ­enced by my par­ents,” she says can­did­ly. “But since the elec­tion, I’ve been study­ing some of Obama’s ideas,” she says. “I like them,” she says, but adds, “not all of them.” 

Now, as Pres­i­dent-elect Oba­ma pre­pares his team for the com­ing term, both girls are excit­ed about the pos­si­bil­i­ties. Gabi feels his elec­tion has “opened a lot of doors, espe­cial­ly for minori­ties and women. There is new ground to explore,” she says. Lau­ren hopes “we will wake up and fix what we’ve done: wake up to the pol­lu­tion, vio­lence and war, and learn how to spend more wise­ly as a nation and individually.” 

Most like­ly, the girls will not see each oth­er at the inau­gu­ra­tion after they reach Wash­ing­ton, but the itin­er­aries for Gabi and Lau­ren in Wash­ing­ton are well planned. They will trav­el on Jan­u­ary 17 and return on Jan­u­ary 21.  Both agen­das include keynote speak­ers, tours, debates, and will cul­mi­nate in all the inau­gur­al fes­tiv­i­ties, includ­ing atten­dance at one of the black tie gala inau­gur­al balls. They have been informed of a strict dress code require­ment for all the events and are plan­ning to pack accord­ing­ly. Gabi’s inau­gur­al gown is in the mak­ing and Lau­ren is plan­ning to wear the dress she wore at eighth-grade graduation.

Both girls need to raise approx­i­mate­ly $3,000 to cov­er expens­es for the entire event. They have already com­plet­ed some indi­vid­ual fundrais­ing, but are plan­ning to host a Mex­i­can din­ner before a bas­ket­ball game some­time in ear­ly Jan­u­ary. They wish to thank the many donors who have already giv­en and hope to see many at the Mex­i­can dinner.