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Inauguration education: Frisco students march into inauguration history
SUBMITTED PHOTO
Wakeland High School juniors Ben Hauser and Tanner Jones marched in the Inauguration Parade with the Cadets of Allentown, Pa.
By Ann Marie Shambaugh, Staff Writer
Two Wakeland High School students were among the crowd of more than 1 million people who braved freezing temperatures to attend the inauguration of President Barack Obama on Tuesday.
Juniors Ben Hauser, 17, and Tanner Jones, 16, marched in the inauguration parade with the Cadets of Allentown, Pa., one of the oldest and most celebrated marching bands in the country. Both students returned to Frisco Wednesday exhausted and sick, but they said the experience was worth the trouble.
“It was indescribable at some points,” said Jones, who plays the baritone. “Whether it was that I couldn’t think through the bone chilling cold or it was amazing how many people we saw when we walked in, there were some moments where I just wanted to stand [and watch] instead of march through it.”
When the big day finally came, the cadets woke up at 1:15 a.m. so they could travel to Washington, D.C. and be screened by the secret service by 6 a.m. The rest of the day was filled with more waiting than anticipated, because U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy suffered a seizure at an inaugural lunch which delayed the start of the parade several hours.
Instead of standing out in the freezing cold for two hours, the cadets spent about five hours outside. During that time, the group huddled together to keep warm, which brought them closer as a corps.
“It was such a bonding experience for us, as people, as us growing as a team, and as a corps,” Jones said. “We all got to know each other more than we thought [we would].”
When the cadets finally began marching, the crowd had thinned out considerably. The Wakeland students said they expected to see huge crowds each time they turned a corner on the 1.5-mile route, but many had already headed home.
“By the time [we arrived] where most of the crowd would have been, a lot of people had gone home since it was really cold,” said Hauser, who is beginning his second year with the cadets as a trumpet player.
The most important person of the day was still around, however, and Jones and Hauser said they caught a glimpse of the new president to their left as they marched through the nation’s capital.
Others in attendance shouted words of encouragement to the cadets. Many said they braved hours in the cold just to watch them perform.
“Those were the moments that kept us going, all of the corps fans screaming at us,” Jones said. “Those are the moments you live for, stuff you can tell your grandkids. Even if it might not have gone as planned, it’s still one of those once-in-a-lifetime things you’ll remember until you die.”
As the students readjust to high school life in Frisco, they are thankful for their opportunity to play a part in a historic day in American history.
“During the freezing cold we all wished we weren’t there, but in retrospect we [would] do it again,” Hauser said.
Closer to home, several Frisco ISD schools watched the inauguration and honored it in different ways. Third-graders at Sparks Elementary School prepared for the new president weekly through a special reading time led by parent Chuck Altman. He also explained the process of the inauguration as the class watched live.
“The goal is to help keep the kids informed and enlightened about American history, especially at such an important time in our nation’s history,” Altman said.
Later that afternoon, the Sparks students mailed letters that they wrote to the new president to encourage him during his first weeks in office.
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