Busy, Busy...

Submitted by r-alexander on Sat, 08/23/2008 - 12:01am.

As you can imagine, we've all been very busy over the past few days. We're all going about 100mph in about 100 different ways. We can see the city of Denver changing by the hour. More protestors, more vendors, more media, more people! The students and I are taking it in the best we can.

I wish my family could be taking this in with me!

Here are some highlights for the last 24 hours...

More ONU students have gotten credentials to attend the INVESCO speech by Obama. These are quite coveted and its looking more and more like most, if not all of us will be able to attend (either as volunteers for security or as credentialed guests). However, the competition for these credentials has proven to be cut-throat. Fortunately, our ONU students have been model citizens...always looking for ways to share their riches. However, many of the students from other schools have shown themselves to be capable of doing whatever it takes to get what they want--even if that means trading self respect and honor in doing so. As I said, I'm happy to say our students have not exhibited that behavior in the least. In fact, they are appalled by it. Perhaps others will discuss this in their posts...

I believe everybody toured the Pepsi Center today--site of the Convention. Several of the students actually served as in security roles. Later, many volunteered their services for the DNC...stuffing bags, running errands, etc...Its important to note that in each instance, the students have used each experience to network with those they have come into contact with. Between them, they have more going on that I can keep track of...

These students have been hard workers and I can already see how much they are getting out of this experience. In fact, they are surely getting things out of it that they never could have imagined. Several have already talked about trying to partake in the Washington Center's inauguration program in January--regardless of who wins! They certainly have caught the bug!

One of our seminar speakers today was Bill Ritter, Democratic governor of Colorado. He was a very engaging speaker. That guys is going places...After Governor Ritter, a media panel was put together where the headliner was Steve Scully of C-SPAN. He, too, was very engaging--running contrary to his on-air persona. He at one point compared political gaffes to crack cocaine! I wasn't expecting that...The panel should run at some point on C-SPAN (you might get a glimpse of an ONU student in the audience).

Later in the day, the Washington Center group had a private gathering where we heard from Howard Dean. He spoke of citizenship, the youth's obligation toward tomorrow, and DNC strategies under his leadership. It was a fiery speech, but there were no magic....yeaaaaaaaaahhhhsssss that we all were hoping to hear (although it is said they could be heard throughout the Denver mountain air if you just listen hard enough).

I was able to make contact with the head of the Ohio Democratic party today--Chris Redfern and he was really open to having our students help out with the Ohio delegation. This is good news.

One more thing...I never want to see Jake Jeffire eat a pizza again...

Here are some random photos...

That's me in front of the student body...I'm telling them that I'm from OHIO and that the road to the White House runs through our wonderful state (yeaaaaaahhhhhhh...imagine Howard Dean)!

I know everybody is tiny...these are my faculty colleagues and Washington Center staff at the Garden of the Gods. I'm the guy in the cream blazer to the right.

This is a view right outside Tom Cronin's house in Colorado Springs. You may recall that Tom is the Faculty Director (and a good friend of ONU...he visited as a speaker nearly 20 years ago and is friends with President Baker as well)