Nevadans watch history

WASHINGTON -- Rachel Peck might be only 3 years old, but she knew where she was going on the train Tuesday with her daddy.

"Look Daddy! Barack Obama!" Rachel said as she pointed at the buttons worn by passengers on the Orange Line. "I'm going to the inauguration. Barack Obama!"

Gary Peck wanted his daughter to be able to say someday she was part of this inauguration.

Peck, 58, is the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada. Raised in Washington when it was very much a Southern city, he embraced the significance of an African-American taking the presidential oath of office.

Father and daughter never made it through the crowds to the inaugural ceremony. But that did not matter as Peck and Rachel strolled along the streets, hand in hand.

"We just walked around and experienced being in the moment, listening to people and watching people and how people were reacting to it all," Peck said. "This was about being there with my daughter."

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On the inaugural stand with other members of Congress, Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., had one of he best seats in the house. Only three rows behind Obama, he could look out over the sea of people. He borrowed a camera from Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., to shoot photos.

"I actually thought that if I could sell this seat on eBay, I could get a hundred thousand dollars for it," Ensign said afterward. "It was pretty awesome to watch, even as a Republican. I just felt like an American up there, not a Republican or Democrat."

Ensign found Obama's speech oddly flat.

"Maybe my expectations were too high," he said. "He is one of the best speakers of our generation, and when you hear him, you expect greatness. I don't want to say anything negative about it. It was very good but not great. There was not that energy level like you saw the night he was elected."

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Never doubt a father's determination.

Bob Sweeney of Henderson set out at 4 a.m. to stake out a position along Pennsylvania Avenue to shoot photos of the Green Valley High School Marching Band, in which his freshman son, Gavin, plays trombone.

"It is not going real good," he reported at 9:55 a.m. He got trapped in the crowds trying to get to the Capitol grounds for the inaugural and at one point found himself on the other side of Capitol Hill.

But by 12:45 p.m., Sweeney and another parent, Carol Campanico, had battled back to claim a sliver of prime pavement along Pennsylvania Avenue near Seventh Street.

So when Gavin and the Green Valley band came marching by about three hours later, Sweeney got his shots. As a bonus, he captured Vice President Joe Biden getting out of his limousine to walk.

"It was kind of neat," Sweeney said at day's end. "Of course I froze to death."

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Growing up as part of the only black family in Kewaskum, Wis., Rhonda Kennedy still remembers a middle school civics teacher telling the class there would be a female president long before there would be a black one.

Kennedy, a paralegal with political ambitions of her own, was thinking of this while watching Obama take the oath of office.

"To see an African-American president in my lifetime, even though I am a Republican, it is still overwhelming to see that and to say, 'I can do anything,'" Kennedy said.

Her husband, Michael, ran for the Nevada Assembly and lost in the Republican primary against incumbent Lynn Stewart in District 22. Rhonda Kennedy said she might give it a shot against Stewart in 2010.

"We need fresh ideas," said Kennedy, who is 36. "Our generation needs to step forward and take that leadership. Otherwise we really can't complain."

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Only a part of the group of 27 traveling from Becker Middle School in Las Vegas was able to gain access to the ceremony. Two factions got separated; one made it in while the other was turned away when authorities closed the National Mall.

Karen West, a Clark County assistant superintendent, reported her group got onto the grounds 10 minutes or so before Obama took the oath of office.

Their tickets got them into a prime section up close, albeit with an obstructed view and sardine space.

"There was a tree in front of us so we could not see Obama, but we heard his speech pretty clearly," West said. "There were really a lot of people. If you were claustrophobic, you did not want to be in that crowd today."

The Becker contingent still declared its trip a big success. Over the weekend the school's jazz band got a gold rating and snagged first place at a heritage festival in Columbia, Md. Also, student trumpeter Cory Zwalen was named outstanding musician.

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Alicia Keys to the rescue.

Xavier Holliday was morose. The 8-year-old with family in Henderson was no more than 25 feet away from a security checkpoint when the generator powering the scanner broke and chaos ensued. Guards closed the checkpoint.

“Xavier was crying and it was bad,” said his aunt, Geneva Holliday. But Keys, the noted soul singer and songwriter, was nearby and came over to comfort the youth and have a picture taken with him, Holliday reported.

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Whose inspirational idea was it for the Green Valley High School Marching Band to break into “Viva Las Vegas” during the inaugural parade as they approached the new president in his White House viewing stand?

“That was my idea,” said band director Diana Koutsulis. The inaugural committee had suggested bands plan music “that is indicative of your area. I thought (“Viva Las Vegas”) would let people know where we were from.”

The C-SPAN camera caught Obama smiling and motioning to First Lady Michelle Obama when the Henderson band passed by.

Passing by the White House, drum majors Veronica Gonzales, Dominique Chavira, Tiago Santana and Sean Power pivoted to the left and sharply saluted Obama.

The performance capped a long day for the students, who underwent a security check at the Pentagon and later stood in the cold for an extra hour as the parade got off to a late start. “But once we got started the band was really energized and played great,” the director said. Finally on their buses back to their hotel at 7 p.m., “they are all sleeping,” Koutsulis said.

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The day ended early and in disappointment for Evan Ringler, a third-grader at Bartlett Elementary School in Henderson.

Evan had followed the presidential election closely and knocked on doors with his father last fall to get people to vote. His mother Jennifer, who works in sales and marketing for a health care company, drew up attention-getting fliers noting the work of Evan and his friend James McCall.

The fliers were sent to Nevada’s senators in hopes they’d get tickets in return. But Evan and his mother found themselves stuck for four hours in a crowd in the Third Street tunnel a short distance from a security checkpoint.

Eventually authorities closed the entrance altogether. “We didn’t get to go. They closed our gates. It was really disappointing,” Evan said. Evan’s mother tried to remain upbeat. “We get to save the ticket for his scrapbook,” she said. James and his parents, Vanessa and Jim, also were turned away before they could get to the Mall.

But as a fallback they detoured to the Pennsylvania Avenue office of the giant law firm Covington and Burling, where Jim’s sister has friends. From the rooftop they were able to watch the parade. Young James “was kind of down about it, but actually being able to see the parade made things better,” his mother said.

By STEVE TETREAULT/STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU