Category: Caroline Bridges
New York’s New Senator Sworn in by Vice President Biden
Photos by Caroline Bridges
Gillibrand
WENY-TV
Lindsay Perna
Boston University Washington News Service
Jan. 27, 2009
WASHINGTON – With a confident “yes” and two quick signatures, U.S. Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand was sworn in Tuesday on the floor of the Senate chamber by Vice President Joe Biden as New York’s junior senator.
Gillibrand spent her last moments as a representative with family in her House office after meeting with members of the press and before making her way to the Senate chamber on the other side of the Capitol.
“My goal for the next two weeks is to travel as far and wide as I can,” Gillibrand said. Speaking in the Cannon House Office Building corridor, she said she plans to meet with media throughout the state.
Gillibrand addressed issues close to her constituent’s hearts and pocket books.
“In times like this we do need to spend,” she said, but “spend carefully.”
After voting twice against the bailout bill, Gillibrand spoke of quickly involving herself in efforts to stimulate the economy and create jobs for citizens of New York.
Gillibrand talked about other problems facing her state after taking the oath on the Senate floor. She said she wants to work toward energy independence within 10 years, to fix decrepit sewer systems and to cut taxes.
“It’s reached the point where we have to get to work,” the senator said. “We don’t want to have a 10-year-long recession. We want to rein it in.”
It was a busy day on Capitol Hill as President Barack Obama shared the same hallways on the Senate side of the Capitol to speak of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan after meeting with Republicans in the House and the Senate.
“The American people expect action,” President Obama said. “I do hope that we can all put politics aside and do the American people’s business right now.”
Greenport native Sen. Gillibrand was the first woman ever elected to Congress from New York’s 20th District. She was also the first Democrat in 30 years to win the Upstate seat.
“It’s just an honor to get to serve,” said the freshest face of the Senate.
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Rep. Dahlkemper Sees ‘A Lot of Hope for This Country’
Photos by Caroline Bridges
Congresswoman
WSEE-35
Lindsay Perna
Boston University Washington News Service
Jan. 19, 2009
WASHINGTON—Since Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper's swearing-in ceremony two weeks ago, the new freshman on campus has been acclimating herself to a Capitol more complex and staggering than her predecessors could imagine.
“This is not the world that most of us live in,” Dahlkemper said in an interview at a Starbucks coffee shop.
As the second Democratic woman in history from western Pennsylvania to serve in the House, this representative of the 3rd Congressional District, which encompasses the thousands of residents from Erie to Pittsburgh, spoke with confidence the day before the inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama.
“People have put a lot of hope in this new president, but they've also put a lot of hope into this new Congress,” she said.
“I have a big learning curve, obviously, having never been in any state legislature.”
But Dahlkemper said she does not let the daunting curriculum ahead faze her.
Dahlkemper, a former dietitian, business owner and arboretum aficionado, deems herself savvy in the issues relevant to her constituents.
“It's a people's house, it's not the house of career politicians,” she said, promising to stay in touch with her district by going home every possible weekend.
Dahlkemper has been assigned to the Agriculture, Small Business and Science and Technology Committees. She said she is building a new base as she “makes alliances with people with similar minds and interests.”
Adamant about following the “mandate by the people of this country” to act positively, she said she knows how it is “important to reach across the aisle. That's one thing the American people have asked for...to work together.”
Her biggest concern lies in the compromise between adhering to her platform promise to be
fiscally conservative and voting yes on an enormous stimulus package to bail out the economy of her country, and more specifically, her district.
“We are beginning to unfortunately catch up with the rest of the country in seeing the downturn in this economy,” Dahlkemper said of her district.
“The hardest part is turning off the spigot once we open it up.”
She said she intends to step back to see “how we are spending because we are bankrupting our children's future.”
She said she is excited by the part she and her fellow newbies will play as a “hope caucus” in the administration to come.
Her inaugural festivities range from new Vice President Joseph Biden's Delaware state ball to the inaugural prayer service at the National Cathedral Wednesday morning.
“I am very honored to be part of the new direction of this country,” she said. “I think there is a lot of hope for this country.”
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A Long Road to Pennsylvania Avenue for Trumbull’s Band
Photos by Caroline Bridges
TRUMBULL
Norwalk Hour
Tait Militana
Boston University Washington News Service
Jan. 19, 2009
WASHINGTON—For Dan Connolly, drum major of the Trumbull High School marching band, the hardest part about preparing for the inaugural parade was staying focused through all of the attention.
During a recent practice, he accidentally smacked a local television cameraman while conducting, but he never stopped. With less than two months to prepare for today’s parade, the band needed every minute of practice it could get.
“It’s alright,” Connolly said. “We just had to deal with it.”
Following the swearing-in ceremony of President Barack Obama, the band will march down Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol until it reaches the White House and passes by the presidential reviewing stand. Trumbull, which will perform three songs, is one of the dozens of bands that will participate in the parade.
The band members spent Monday touring the city and meeting with Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., and Rep. Jim Himes, D-4, who told them they would be living history.
Nonetheless, the road to Jan. 20 has not been easy.
The band learned in early December it would participate in the parade, giving it about seven weeks to book a hotel, raise money for the trip and perfect the music. According to band director Peter Horton, the band practiced five days a week during school hours and two to three nights each week. He said the band is confident and excited.
“It’s amazing,” Horton said. “For the hard work of all the kids over the years, it’s a reward.”
Nonetheless, Horton said, despite all the preparations, his largest concern is the weather.
After participating in the 2001 inaugural parade, the band knows what an unpredictable effect the weather can have. Eight years ago, the band had to march through rain and sleet in near-freezing temperatures after spending hours waiting around. Horton said the way the students persevered through those conditions instilled confidence in him that the band can adapt to almost anything.
“We played right through,” he said. “They are able to turn the switch on and off.”
The band has played in several high-profile parades before. Since 1996 Trumbull has performed at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City, the Hollywood Santa Parade, the Mardi Gras Parade in New Orleans and the Citrus Bowl Festival in Orlando, Fla.. Yet, Horton said, the inaugural parade trumps all of that.
“For many this is a new beginning,” he said. “For them [the students] to be part of it makes it much more personal.”
Timothy Enos, a junior, said he was excited that so many people were traveling from Connecticut to watch the parade and participate in the inaugural events. The band traveled with dozens of parents and chaperones. Dodd and Himes also promised to watch the parade with their own families.
“It feels like we are representing the people,” Enos said.
The band will step off at approximately 2 p.m.
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Community Service in Honor of Martin Luther King Jr.
Photos by Caroline Bridges
SERVICE
New Hampshire Union Leader
Aoife Connors
Boston University Washington News Service
Jan. 19, 2009
WASHINGTON – Alden Hall, a physician living in Lebanon, was working the night shift on election night. “I was dealing with a patient in the emergency room at the hospital on November 4, 2008.”
Hall heard the nurses and staff shouting “so I ran down the corridor to see the victory on TV; there was so much excitement.”
Earlier that day, before the polls had closed, Hall booked for his family plane tickets to D.C. for the inauguration. “I was sure Obama was going to win.”
“This is a historic presidency and so we want the children to remember it and be a part of the inauguration celebrations” Hall said.
Now in Washington for the long weekend, Hall said “we wanted to be part of the continued celebrations.” Hall, his wife Marcy Chong and their two children, 5-year-old Khuan-Yu and 3-year-old Josephine, spent Monday morning helping clean the Forest Hills Playground in the Cleveland Park neighborhood of Washington.
The cleanup was one of hundreds of community service projects organized by the inauguration committee to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. day.
Carrie Cohen, President of the Friends of Forest Hill Playground, said “we’ve had an amazing turnout, much more than expected. Everyone had a job to do, from litter sweepers to raking leaves and sorting through broken toys.”
“Obama’s call to do community service in honor of Martin Luther King is a good one,” said Hall. “It is about changing our country’s perspective of giving back, by doing community service.”
“We need to get back that sense of self sacrifice in the tradition of doing what John F Kennedy advocated. Instead of nation building around the globe, we need to be doing nation building here in our own country” Hall said.
While struggling to climb up the playground slide, Khuan-Yu said, “Obama is good. He won’t start wars and he is going to get a dog for his little girls at the White House.”
“It is amazing that so many people will come out with their families on such a cold Washington holiday to do community service” Cohen said.
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New Hampshire Residents Flock to the Capital
Photos by Caroline Bridges
MondayWrap
New Hampshire Union Leader
Jillian Jorgensen and Aoife Connors
Boston University Washington News Service
Jan. 19, 2009
WASHINGTON--When she was young, Nicole Fellian was overjoyed when she was allowed to stay up late to watch the results of the 1992 election between Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush. Now, 16 years later, the Hopkinton resident who stayed up late to watch the political process unfold will get to watch it firsthand at the presidential inauguration of Barack Obama.
“It’s definitely something historic that I’ll be able to tell my grandchildren about it,” Fellian, 28, a law student at Franklin Pierce University, said while she waited in line Monday outside the Russell Senate Office Building in Washington to pick up tickets from the office of Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H.
Thousands of New Hampshire residents converged on the capital this week to witness the historic swearing-in of the nation’s 44th president.
“The day after the election, I e-mailed Sen. Gregg,” Fellian said. “It wasn’t a second thought. If we could get tickets, we were coming.”
Meanwhile, 200 New Hampshire residents, expatriates and the full congressional delegation gathered at the New Hampshire State Society’s inaugural reception Monday night at the Willard InterContinental Hotel.
“This is a fulfillment of the American dream,” Sen. Gregg said. “It is a restatement of the American creed that for people with mobility and talent, the opportunities are limitless in this nation.”
Rep. Paul Hodes, D-N.H., said, “It’s absolutely tremendous that New Hampshire is alive and well in D.C. I think that folks feel sober about the challenges we face, and hopeful and optimistic that the Congress and the new administration are ready to tackle those challenges.”
Earlier on Monday, outside the office of Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., Ken Goodrow, 46, and his son Stephen, 17, from Plainfield, waited to pass through security and pick up their tickets.
“It’s ridiculously exciting and utterly amazing to be here, and that’s as close as I can come to describing it,” Stephen Goodrow said.
As people arrived to pick up tickets from Shaheen’s office, the senator spoke with reporters about the inauguration and the issues to be addressed by the Senate.
“It’s exciting. It’s nice to see so many people here from New Hampshire,” Shaheen said.
People entering her office, she said, were expressing excitement at being in Washington “with a new president and how exciting it is to be here in the office, where we have a new senator, a Democratic senator for the first time in almost 35 years elected from New Hampshire.”
But Shaheen said there was also work to be done on issues including the staggering economy, health care and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Allison Browne, an African-American mother of three from Plymouth, arrived in Washington on Saturday to be part of the inauguration celebrations.
“What is so interesting at this time is that, as a parent, you tell your children they can be anything they want to be, but now you can actually see past the boundaries,” Browne said. “Since the inauguration of Obama, three different people have said to me out of the blue; wow your sons could be president some day.”
“I really admire Obama; his words are very powerful,” said her son, Alexander, 11. “He has a lot of confidence when he speaks and he believes in what he’s saying.”
Teresa and Jim Gocha, also from Plymouth, brought their three children to Washington to celebrate Obama’s victory.
When Margaret Gocha, 9, from Plymouth, heard that she would be going to the inauguration, she expected to be staying at the White House with Sasha and Malia Obama. When her parents explained that they won’t be allowed, she threw her hands in the air and said, “Well, what’s the point in even going then?”
Margaret met Michelle Obama before the primaries last year. Her mother recalled that “Ms Obama knelt down and said ‘Hello, beautiful girl.’”
Margaret campaigned for Obama with her friend Bella in New Hampshire. “We made signs saying ‘One Vote Counts’ and ‘Go Barack Obama,’ and my mom made Obama cupcakes.’”
Outside Hodes’ office, Jean Cowan, 57, and her husband, Bob Cowan, 61, from Concord waited eagerly for the tickets and reflected on the meaning of the big event.
“I was a child of the sixties. To me, there is a complete cycle here,” Jean Cowan said. “And a big breakthrough of racial barriers.”
Among many New Hampshire residents waiting in line, there was a desire to not just watch the inauguration, but to be a part of the historic moment.
“I want to hear the speech and I want to see the people. I want to be part of that gathering,” Bob Cowan said.
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54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Makes History Again
Photos by Caroline Bridges
SOLDIER
Worcester Telegram & Gazette
Sarah Gantz
Boston University Washington News Service
Jan. 19, 2009
WASHINGTON — Eli Biddle lied about his age. He was 16 in 1863, not 17, as he told the recruiters he met on the street. Mr. Biddle had been booted out of class for refusing to sing “My Country ‘Tis of Thee.” While wandering around Boston, he decided to join the army, even though he was one year shy of the age requirement.
Until those days following the Emancipation Proclamation, Mr. Biddle's race would have been a more formidable barrier to enlisting. But the unit he joined was the newly formed 54th Massachusetts Voluntary Infantry, one of the first all-black army regiments.
“These people were fighting just to be called American. Now, we’re electing an African American president,” said Mr. Biddle’s great-grandson, Michael Coblyn, of Amherst, who is a member of a reenactment group of his great-grandfather’s regiment. “It’s something that was beyond their dreams.”
Tuesday, the Boston-based honorary unit will march in the inaugural parade in honor of the nation’s first black commander in chief and the men of the original 54th Infantry who, they say, helped make Barack Obama’s election possible.
“Way back when the 54th was fighting for freedom, they were also fighting for him to be in this position,” said Bobby Berry, 79, of Boston, during a break from drill practice at the African American Civil War Museum Sunday. “It was not all glory, and peaches and cream,” Mr. Berry, who plays a sergeant major, said of the infantry’s role in the Civil War and the civil rights movement.
The 54th was among the first official all-black regiments and is remembered for spearheading the Battle of Fort Wagner, in which the regiment suffered heavy casualties, but also demonstrated its dedication to the Union. “It opened America’s eyes to equality,” said Emmett Bell-Sykes, 35, who plays a second sergeant. “In that way, they were pioneers.”
Named the 54th Massachusetts Glory Brigade, after the movie “Glory,” which chronicles the regiment from its formation to the attack on Fort Wagner, the Boston group of enactors has been performing for schools and marching in parades since its founding in 1992.
Their main event is marching in the parade Tuesday, but since arriving in Washington Saturday, the brigade has been busy with a schedule of demonstrations, squeezing drill practice in between.
Sunday, the soldiers practiced standing at attention (heads up, shoulders back, heels together in a V, musket perpendicular to the right hip), while an officer adjusted the position of a man’s canteen and knapsack slung across his brass-buttoned wool jacket.
The brigade is a family tradition for Mr. Coblyn. His three sons are also members. His father, George, founded the group with Benny White, the current lieutenant. Mr. Coblyn’s oldest son, Christopher, 25, said being part of the brigade a responsibility that comes with the honor of being a descendent of a member of the historic group.
Richard Massey is also proud of his connection to the 54th Infantry. Mr. Massey, a 74-year-old who grew up in Worcester, is the great-grandson of Alexander H. Johnson, the regiment’s teenage drummer.
Mr. Massey has spent hours researching his great-grandfather—a romantic poet with admirable penmanship. An advocate of civil rights “long before all that came about,” Mr. Massey said, Mr. Johnson had dreamed of starting an African American veteran’s group in Worcester, but was unsuccessful.
Now, he said, “They’d be rolling over in their graves if they saw.”
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For Connecticut College Student, a Long Journey From Colombia to the Inauguration
Photos by Caroline Bridges
FELFLE
New London Day
Katie Koch
Boston University Washington News Service
Jan. 18, 2009
WASHINGTON – It took Alexandra Felfle nearly two days to travel from her hometown of Barranquilla, Colombia, to the Hilton Washington. Still, she arrived at the hotel Saturday smiling and poised, ready to witness the inauguration of Barack Obama.
Add to that her flawless English, and it was easy to forget how far the Connecticut College junior had come for this week’s University Presidential Inaugural Conference. That is, until she saw an old friend from her first trip to the States, and the two young women erupted in laughter and frenzied Spanish, her native language.
It was a long-awaited reunion for Felfle, who first visited Washington in 2005 as the only foreign student to receive a scholarship to the Global Young Leaders Conference. Early last year that program’s sponsor, the Congressional Youth Leadership Council, invited Felfle to the special 2009 university inauguration conference. After months of fundraising, she’s finally in town for Tuesday’s festivities.
Of the 5,000 college students attending this week’s conference, only 495 are international, according to program spokesperson Carmen McClaskey. Nearly all the participants are alumni of Congressional Youth Leadership Council programs.
As part of the conference, Felfle will hear speakers such as Colin Powell and Al Gore, watch the inauguration from the Mall and attend a black-tie gala for the program’s students at the National Air and Space Museum downtown. She also will get the chance to discuss politics and ideas with like-minded young people from around the world.
The logistics of Felfle’s trip weren’t easy. Her parents paid for her plane ticket to Washington from Barranquilla, where she spent her winter break, but she had to come up with the conference fees herself.
“I thought, either I need to get a scholarship, I need to work, or I need to find a way to do this,” she recalled.
As it turned out, Connecticut College stepped in to help Felfle, the first international student at the college to serve as a class president.
“The day she got the letter, she talked to me and we kind of set out a game plan for her and who she should approach,” Cheryl Banker, Felfle’s career counselor at Connecticut College, said. “She wrote letters, did all the solicitation. She went after it.”
Over the next several months, Felfle raised nearly $3,000 from 11 different departments and administrators at the university, including college President Leo I. Higdon Jr.
“Her accomplishments enrich us all, and the support she received from so many people and departments across campus is a strong reflection of the pride we have in her,” Higdon said in a statement to The Day.
Even before her door-to-door campaign, Felfle had become a familiar face to the deans and counselors at the school as a “very enthusiastic freshman,” according to Mary Devins, associate director of the college’s Toor Cummings Center for International Studies and the Liberal Arts.
“I said to her, ‘You go for it, girlfriend, I’ll give you some money,’” Devins said.
In exchange for the financial boost, Felfle will give a presentation on her inauguration experience at Connecticut College on Feb. 13. She also hopes to gain extra perspective on America’s economic relationship with Colombia, which will be the focus of her senior thesis in economics and international relations.
Although she couldn’t vote in November’s elections, Felfle closely followed both candidates’ positions on foreign aid and trade. A country long plagued by drug trafficking and guerrilla warfare, Colombia is one of the top ten recipients of American foreign aid. It also relies on free trade to keep its economy afloat, Felfle said.
While taking classes at Georgetown University’s Semester in Washington Program in the fall, she became an advocate of free trade between her native and adopted countries. She said she is curious to see what policies Barack Obama will pursue and if he will address Colombia in his speech on Tuesday.
“Globalization is a boat you want to jump on,” she said. “It’s not positive right away, and it will take some time…but I think Obama changed his mind [about a U.S.–Colombia trade agreement] because he saw what good it could do for the country.”
Armando Bengochea, dean of the college community and one of the donors to Felfle’s trip, said her studied attitude toward international cooperation is evident in her work on campus.
“She strikes me as a true believer in globalism as distinct from globalization, who’s interested in solidarity between people and governments,” Bengochea said. “She’s someone who tries to build bridges.”
Like most of the millions coming to Washington this week, Felfle said she feels a personal connection to the new president that will make her trip even more memorable.
“In a weird way I relate to him, especially to his dad coming to the U.S. to go to school,” Felfle said. “He’s a fighter. He got everything in life based on his intelligence, and I admire that.”
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Shaheen Full of Hope at EMILY’s List
Photos by Caroline Bridges
EMILYSLIST
New Hampshire Union Leader
Aoife Connors
Boston University Washington News Service
Jan. 18, 2009
WASHINGTON – While walking from her office in the Dirksen Senate Office Building to the Capitol to cast a vote recently, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., got lost in the basement. Speaking at an EMILY’s List luncheon Sunday, the new senator received a resounding cheer when she declared “the building was clearly laid out by a group of men.”
Shaheen, one of several women honored at the luncheon, thanked EMILY’s List supporters and said “without you, I would not be here today.” EMILY’s List is a political action group that supports pro-choice Democratic women candidates and campaigns to mobilize women voters.
Women bring their life experiences to the government table and this is so important, Shaheen said. “Let’s celebrate and have a great time but then let’s get to work.”
Last week Shaheen introduced her first piece of legislation, to improve health care for New Hampshire veterans, she told the packed Ballroom at the Washington Hilton. She added that along with her Senate colleagues, she would make pay equity a reality because women deserve better and the country can do better.
Defeated in 2002 for the Senate by Republican John Sununu, Shaheen said the phone never stopped ringing after the result. Ellen R. Malcolm, founder of the EMILY’s List, would not take no for an answer and persuaded her to run again, Shaheen said.
Joan Jacobs from Portsmouth, N.H., said she “spent $250 for my ticket and I was so glad to spend it.” Jacobs said she has worked for Shaheen for the past year “and working 100 percent on politics. Shaheen will bring progressive change both domestically and internationally to our country.”
Lynn Prosten, a member of the majority council of EMILY’s List, said, “Shaheen is an articulate and thoughtful senator who is going to represent all U.S. women’s issues.”
Besides Shaheen, other celebrated speakers at the luncheon were Rep. Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the House, Gov. Janet Napolitano, nominated to be secretary of Homeland Security, and Sen. Hillary Clinton, nominated to be secretary of State.
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Burncoat Choir Does DC
Photos by Caroline Bridges
CHOIR
Worcester Telegram & Gazette
Sarah Gantz
Boston University Washington News Service
Jan. 17, 2009
WASHINGTON — In one gulp, Rachael Brown swallowed the mint she had popped in her mouth to stave off hunger just in time for the opening line of the Star Spangled Banner. Ms. Brown, 17, is a self-proclaimed “very loud soprano” for the Burncoat High School Select Choir, which gave an impromptu performance on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives Saturday morning.
“We do that now and then,” said Casey Evans, a 17-year-old tenor, who explained that the 23-member choir often bursts into song unexpectedly.
The group is in town for the Presidential Inaugural Heritage Music Festival, a competition for student ensembles scheduled to coincide with the inauguration of Barack Obama. They have been seeing the sights, including the nooks and crannies of the U.S. Capitol on a tour guided by Rep. James McGovern (D-Worcester).
Mr. McGovern and his 7-year-old daughter Molly led the group, a parade of swishing matching windbreaker jackets and camera flashes, through the Capitol’s ornate halls to the House chamber, where few visitors venture and even fewer sing.
“There’s not a lot of singing going on on the House floor,” said Mr. McGovern, who described their a cappella rendition of the national anthem as “absolutely beautiful.”
Seated in a cluster of House member’s chairs, the choir listened as Mr. McGovern explained the building’s history and gazed up at the bullet hole in the ceiling left by an attack by Puerto Rican nationalists who fired into the chamber from the gallery in 1954.
“It’s kind of like the cafeteria,” Mr. McGovern said of where the members sit in the chamber, explaining that, although there are no assigned seats, he and the other representatives migrate to the same general vicinity every session.
It was after filling the lavish staircases with their echoing “wow”s but before peeking into the chamber’s couch-filled cloakroom—“Where we hang out,” said the congressman—that David J. Twiss, the director, called for an E-flat and the choir began to sing the national anthem.
The group has spent the past five months, including four rehearsals when school was closed in December because of the ice storm, perfecting a three-song a cappella set they are to perform Sunday night.
Last April, they placed first in the chamber chorus division and second over-all at a similar competition in Williamsburg, Va.,, but awards are not the group’s priority, Mr. Twiss said. “Our goal is to do our personal best.”
“I don’t think they have any idea how important it was to have done that,” Mr. Twiss said of their House chamber performance. “But someday they will.”
Rose Murphy understood. The 17-year-old said she was so excited to get on the bus Friday morning when the group left Worcester that she woke up early and triple-checked that she had everything.
“It’s one of those things I’ll never forget,” said Ms. Murphy. “Every time I see C-SPAN I’ll think of it.”
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Former New Bedford School Principals Await Inauguration
Photo by Caroline Bridges
RIVET
The New Bedford Standard-Times
Cristian Hernandez
Boston University Washington New Service
01/16/09
WASHINGTON – Roberta Rivet spent 15 years serving as the E.C. Brooks Elementary School principal. Her husband, Leonard Rivet was principal of Roosevelt Middle School. They spent their careers telling students of all backgrounds that they could be and do anything they wanted when they grew up and now they see that dream becoming a reality with the presidential inauguration of Barack Obama.
After retiring the Rivets moved from New Bedford to the Washington area in 2001. Mr. Rivet, who retired in 2005 from the Navy Reserve after 38 years, now works for the Defense Intelligence Agency.
“Every now and then we look at each other and think who would have thought we would end up here,” said Mrs. Rivet. They still own a home in Dartmouth and are registered Massachusetts voters. Mrs. Rivet flies back every month to visit her mother and the couple returns to the area for summer vacations.
The couple shies away from politics and said that the inauguration of Barack Obama transcends politics. They said they have never been loyal to any political party nor do they always agree. In November Mr. Rivet said he voted for Barack Obama and Mrs. Rivet said she voted for John McCain.
Nonetheless, Mrs. Rivet is looking forward to the new administration, “We wish him the very best,” she said. “He’s there for all of us – those who voted for him and those who didn’t.”
She considers the events on Tuesday historical and emotional. “When you work with kids you don’t see black and white. They are just kids,” said Mrs. Rivet.
Choking back tears, she recalled her experiences as a college student during the civil rights movement. A moment in history she said she will never forget was when civil rights leader Medgar Evers was shot in the back of the head in the driveway of his home in Mississippi in 1963.
“I often think to myself, look how far we’ve come,” said Mrs. Rivet.
In his work, Mr. Rivet said he trains hundreds of civilian employees who are coming to work for the Department of Defense.
He said that the new federal workforce he is training is young and understands the politics of Barack Obama.
“Things have really changed. There’s a difference in the way people relate to each other in the federal government,” Mr. Rivet said. “Politics have nothing to do with the way things have changed but the fact that the country has chosen an African American president has changed things already. People are more willing to work with other groups.”
Even though the Rivets are excited about Obama’s inauguration, they plan to watch the ceremony on television in the comfort of their apartment in Arlington, Va., which has a view of the Capitol.
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