Locals to see Boehner Ceremony

Locals to see Boehner Ceremony

By Bob Robinson

What do 22,000 phone calls get you?

For 11 Darke Countians, the experience of a lifetime.

Four buses, loaded with residents of the Miami Valley, headed for Washington, D.C., Tuesday morning and arrived yesterday evening. Today more than 400 people, including the supporters from Darke County, will view the official opening of the 112th Congress at noon, and the swearing in of the 61st Speaker of the House, John Boehner.

Boehner’s Darke County guests are: Donna Harter, Cindy Pike, Hershel and Barbara Fee, Dori Howdieshell, Karen Brooks, James McGlothin, Kurt Fritsch, Ron Christman, and Al and Lyn Bliss. Due to space limitations in the House Gallery, they’ll be viewing the events through closed-circuit television from the Cannon Caucus Room.

Boehner’s invitations are a “thank you” for the tens of thousands of phone calls supporters made during the 2010 election year. Locally, five or six Darke Countians met each Thursday evening at Buchy’s Food Service to make phone calls to area voters.

Questions ranged from “Do you support President Obama’s agenda” to “Will you be voting to return Ted Strickland to the Governor’s Office in November.” Calls began in January and continued through Nov. 2.

Lyn Bliss sent photos and a brief dialog of their trip and hectic schedule.

“The group shot (see below) is check-in at the hotel,” she said. “Now think of 200-plus people arriving at a hotel at the same time - being overseen by Secret Service - trying to get checked in at the hotel so that everyone can get to their rooms, unpack, change to evening attire and be back out to the bus in 35 minutes.

“We were bused to ‘Family and Friends Reception’ in the Presidential Dining Room of the Capitol Hill Club. Newt Gingrich was there as well as quite a few members of the Boehner family.”

Guests will attend Boehner’s Inaugural Reception at the Library of Congress this evening, then board buses to head back to Troy in the morning.

Next stop? Columbus next week for the inauguration of John Kasich as the 63rd Governor of the State of Ohio.

Pictured, left to right, in lead photo: Lyn and Al Bliss, Barbara and Hershel Fee, and Dori Howdieshell.

Bob Robinson is the retired editor of The Daily Advocate, Greenville, Ohio. If you wish to receive a daily notification of his comments, opinions and reports, send your email address to: opinionsbybob@gmail.com. Feel free to express your views.