Catawba teens get to see the president – eventually

Three Rock Hill High School students had the chance of a lifetime to see the president of the United States in person – if only they could find a way to get inside.

Taylor Blue, Courtney Oates and Sarah Tucker, members of the Catawba Indian Nation, were invited by Chief Bill Harris to attend a speech by President Barack Obama when the president visited Columbia last week. But the story they came back with to York County was more about how they very nearly missed the whole thing.

As the head of the only federally-recognized Native American tribe in South Carolina, Harris was contacted by the White House the week of Obama’s visit to join a VIP group at the Benedict College event.

“Since it was a youth-driven meeting, I called Rachel (McDaniel, who administers the tribe’s grants program) and told her we needed to have some of our youth with us at the speech on Friday,” Harris said. “It was fairly simple. We just based it on attendance and grades.”

The three lucky students, chosen by the Boys and Girls Clubs chapter at the Catawba Teen Center on the reservation southweast of Rock Hill, were only alerted two days before the speech that they needed to take an (excused) absence from school to see the president in person.

“I was nervous because I thought, ‘I’ve got to get shoes and clothes,’ ” said Sarah, 15. “I was like, ‘I wish I’d known about this two weeks ago.’”

“I had no shoes that I thought were dressy enough,” said Courtney, 14. “I showed up (Friday) in my orange bedroom slippers.”

Along with Taylor, 17, the group traveled down to Columbia together from the Catawba longhouse, but once there they were split into two groups. Harris and McDaniel received advance “blue” tickets that got them inside first, while the girls were given general admission “green” tickets that kept them waiting outside the venue.

“We were at the very back of the line for like two hours, and it was about 37 degrees,” Courtney said.

In the time they were waiting, the teens watched one family get turned away from the gate with fake tickets, apparently bought from a scalper. Another passing woman blamed Obama for her water getting shut off, then asked for spare change.

When the girls got to the front of the line, they were told the venue was over capacity, and despite their green tickets, were told they wouldn’t be allowed in.

“I started texting everybody saying, ‘We can’t get in,” Sarah said. “What was I going to tell everybody, that I was outside the presence of Obama?”

Meanwhile, Harris had called the White House’s Intergovernmental Affairs Office and spoke to the Columbia fire marshal to see if there was a way the girls would be able to get inside. Otherwise, Harris said, he would have to pass on his chance to meet “the best president for Indian country since Nixon” in order to get his tribe’s younger members out of the cold.

“We were just going to go have an adventure day in Columbia,” Harris said. “But I’m sure they would much rather see the president than have the chief drive them around saying, ‘Look at that over there.’”

Finally, space was found to squeeze in the last of the green ticketholders. Good seats at that – directly to the president’s left from the Benedict stage, with a stern-faced Secret Service agent in between scanning their section. The girls ended up sitting closer than she did, McDaniel said, with many of the people Obama called on during the question-and-answer portion of the event.

The teens considered asking the president to take a selfie with them, but decided against it. Instead, Courtney managed to snap one as Obama was moving through the crowd.

In the end, Harris hopes the wait made the event a little more memorable.

“If they had just been able to walk in, they would have had no adventure,” Harris said. “They kept the faith that this was going to happen.

“They were the only three teens from York County there... I told them, ‘You were not chosen for this. You earned it. You made this happen.’”

The high schoolers came away impressed with the event, especially since the president stressed the importance of getting a college education.

“Just to get to hear the president talk about young people was important,” Sarah said, “because the president doesn’t always talk about youth issues. He’s usually talking about politics.

“I felt really lucky.”

This story was originally published March 13, 2015 at 4:48 PM with the headline "Catawba teens get to see the president – eventually."