Students see inauguration as ‘history in making’

Published 10:43 pm Tuesday, January 20, 2009

EVERETT — At Everett High School’s Civic Auditorium, there were collective “oohs” and “aahs” at the first panoramic images of the flag-waving crowd in Washington, D.C., during Tuesday’s televised inauguration ceremony.

There was long sustained applause when Barack Obama first appeared on the large screen.

And, without being asked, students stood silently for the oath of office and offered an ovation at the end.

Beforehand, Principal Catherine Matthews told the students, “I predict you will all be telling your grandkids about this.”

High school students in several districts across Snohomish County were able to watch Tuesday’s presidential inauguration.

At Snohomish High School, about 150 students huddled into the library.

American government teacher Tuck Gionet said students were “dead quiet” during the oath and much of the ceremony.

The change in leadership “appeals to something in the younger generations we probably haven’t seen in quite some time,” he said.

Gionet’s students returned quickly to their classroom after the oath to listen to the speech on the radio. Listening to the audio broadcast without video images proved to be a powerful way for them to absorb the speech, he said.

Most students at Everett High School crowded into the lower section of the auditorium. Others watched from their classrooms.

Jessica Zamora, a junior, said she enjoyed hearing the president emphasize old themes of loyalty, patriotism and accepting different cultures.

“It is something we all need to be interested in no matter how old we are,” she said. “It’s history and it’s happening in front of us. We are actual witnesses of history as it was being made.”

Zamora said she has high hopes for America’s 44th president.

“I think it’s going to make a great difference,” she said. “It’s a change and I think we kind of needed that.”

Derrick Thomas, another junior, said he is glad his school let him watch the inauguration “and not just because we get to miss class.”

“This is living history in the making,” he said. “I wanted to see how well his speech was going to go and I liked what he had to say.”

Thomas said he was left with two enduring images from watching the ceremony: the enormous energetic crowd and the faces of Obama’s daughters, Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7.

Not all schools showed the inauguration.

“We had semester finals during that time,” said Greg Schwab, principal at Mountlake Terrace High School.

When Shannon Ford of Granite Falls learned that her first- and second-grade sons, Edgar and Oscar, might not get to watch the inauguration at Monte Cristo Elementary School, she kept them home until the oath of office was taken. She said she thought it was important for her children to get to see the swearing in of a new president.

Ford and her young sons then listened to Obama’s inauguration address on the drive to school.

She said she is glad she kept them home to watch.

“They could understand it,” she said. “They had all kinds of questions about this president and a lot of other presidents right down to (asking), ‘Where is Richard Nixon?’”

Reporter Eric Stevick: 425-339-3446 or e-mail stevick@heraldnet.com.