News

20 YEARS AGO: NEWS FROM THE ISSUE OF FEB. 3, 2005 History teacher Theresa Nelson kept her classroom television tuned in to the Presidential Inauguration all day Jan. 20, but it wasn’t President Bush her Atwater-Cosmos-Grove City students were hoping to see. The 23 sets of seventh-grade eyes in Nelson’s civics class scanned the crowded Capitol for Shane Hagstrom, ACGC retention coordinator. “He called us from Washington, D.C., while he was waiting for the inauguration to start,” Nelson said. Although a pleasant side effect, treating ACGC students to a long-distance game of “Where’s Waldo” wasn’t why Hagstrom went to Washington, of course. “I always wanted to go to D.C.,” Hagstrom said. “What better time to go than when something big is happening.” Hagstrom has been interested in politics for as long as he could remember. For many years, he has watched the inauguration on TV. Then, just a few weeks before the 2005 Inauguration, he and some friends toyed with the idea of attending. One week before the inauguation, they booked their flight. “It’s a good experience just to be there,” Hagstrom said. “It’s a celebration of freedom and a government that we elect.”