Students to witness Obama take oath
ELGIN — Kathryn Czerkies will be in Washington D.C. on Tuesday when the candidate she cast her first presidential vote for is sworn into office.
Czerkies is a 2006 graduate of Dundee-Crown High School in Carpentersville. The 21-year-old Eastern Illinois University junior is one of several area students who will be at the 56th presidential inauguration when Barack Obama becomes the nation's 44th president.
Czerkies is attending the inauguration with National Youth Leadership Forum, an educational organization that helps prepare high school and college students for professional careers. The group extended her an invitation after she attended a conference on medicine in 2006, having been nominated by Dundee-Crown staff.
"I got the invitation (for the inauguration) about a year ago, and I didn't know if it was going to be a Republican or Democrat president and I didn't know if it might be Hillary (Clinton) or Obama," Czerkies said. "It makes it more fun now that who I voted for is actually going to be the president. It makes it a million times better."
Czerkies said the trip costs about $3,000, including some meals, a hotel and includes several conferences and workshops on political issues and attendance at an inaugural ball. There are more than 1,000 students participating in the National Youth Leadership Forum inauguration event. She will be gone Saturday through Wednesday.
"I'm really hoping to be able to learn more about the economy and what Obama has planned to help us get out of this mini-depression," Czerkies said. "I want to know about the military process and what he plans to do for veterans. My brother was in Iraq, so that is important to my family."
Several current high school students from across the Fox Valley area also will be present at the swearing-in thanks to similar programs.
Sara Kokkelenberg of McHenry, a 17-year-old Elgin Academy senior, will attend the Presidential Youth Inaugural Conference by the Congressional Youth Leadership Council, which organizes programs for nominated high school students based on academic achievement. The conference, which began Saturday and continues through Wednesday, includes presentations by speakers such as Al Gore and Lance Armstrong, a black-tie gala and a trip to the inauguration.
Sara was invited to the conference this spring after attending the CYLC's Global Youth Leadership Conference two summers ago in Washington, D.C., and New York City with about 360 students from around the world.
Lexi Pleasant of Hampshire, 16, a junior at Hampshire High School, was encouraged to attend Inaugural 2009, hosted by Presidential Classroom, by her mother, who attended a Presidential Classroom program when she was in high school, Lexi said. That program also runs Saturday through Wednesday and includes educational seminars, tours of Washington, D.C., monuments and a gala event in addition to the inauguration.
Lexi said she'd followed the presidential election campaign at school, and that was "great."
But she thinks "some people are too opinionated." Mostly, she thinks seeing the swearing-in in person is an experience she couldn't pass up.
"Politics are always kind of fun, but mostly, its an opportunity that was really neat," Lexi said. "I think just meeting everybody and seeing how they look at the new president and hearing their opinions will be pretty neat."
Robert Piercy, a social studies teacher at H.D. Jacobs High School in Algonquin, is taking a group of 19 students to the inauguration. Piercy discovered an inaugural trip through Smithsonian Student Travel when he was doing research in Washington, D.C., two summers ago. The students will be in the nation's capital today through Wednesday and will visit area museums and monuments and attend an inaugural ball.
Piercy said he was surprised there weren't more than 19 students who wanted to attend, but that interest had picked up after Obama was elected.
"Out of all the social studies, history is the most difficult because some students don't see a connection to some of the historical events," Piercy said. "For a lot of them, history is about a bunch of old, white, dead dudes. This is a change."
Piercy said students may not understand the significance of attending Obama's inauguration now but they will look back on it one day.
"When they get older and have kids and grandkids they will look back on it and tell future generations they were there," he said. "I hope they get an appreciation for history and the importance of it, and the magnitude that America has come a long way. There were steps people made prior to Obama that allowed him to get to this point."
