Nashua North students, faculty participate in town hall-style meeting with Obama

Published: Thursday, February 4, 2010

Photo by KEEGAN BEDINGER President Barack Obama speaks to the crowd at Nashua High School North on Tuesday.

Photo by KEEGAN BEDINGER President Barack Obama speaks to the crowd at Nashua High School North on Tuesday.

Last week was one of the most exciting in Nashua High School North history. The buzz created by President Barack Obama’s visit swept through not only the student body, but also the greater community.

At school, you could feel the energy and hype the second you entered. The Secret Service walked in on sports practices while making preparations, news stations swarmed the parking lot and the students were released from school at 11:45 a.m. Tuesday, Feb. 2, when Obama held a town hall-style meeting in our very own gym and provided many members of the community and North students and faculty with an experience of a lifetime.

Along with selected staff, 35 students at North were selected in a lottery to attend the event. In addition, members of North’s National Honor Society were included.

The student body and faculty were part of the process, from singing the national anthem to greeting the president.

“Twenty National Honor Society students from both North and South participated in the event,” said senior Trevor Rancourt, vice president of the National Honor Society at North.

Many were assigned different jobs. For example, Rancourt said he “and two friends guarded the gate where local media weren’t allowed to leave.”

Working alongside Secret Service and participating in the event was, as Rancourt put it, “memorable.”

North teacher David Goldsmith was one of the faculty members sitting on the stage. He was lucky enough to sit in the front row, right behind the president during the meeting.

“It was a fantastic experience,” Goldsmith said. “Shaking his hand and making eye contact with him as he answered questions, I really got a sense of who he was.”

I was also fortunate enough to attend the meeting. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience I will never forget. The moment Obama stepped on the stage, I felt butterflies in my stomach as I cheered with the rest of the enthusiastic audience – the president of the United States of America, at my school in Nashua, New Hampshire.

Even though the Secret Service has left, the news teams have stopped taping and the bright lights have been taken down, it will be a while before I enter the gym and don’t feel a great sense of pride at how Nashua North welcomed President Obama.

Keegan Bedinger is a junior at Nashua High School North.