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Applegate students have time of their lives By Bill Varble Debi Benedict didn�t know what to expect when she took nine kids ranging in age from 12 to 15 to the inauguration in Washington, D.C. She didn�t have to worry. "They were so pumped," Benedict says. "They said it was the best time they�ve ever had. They stood there for the national anthem with tears running down their faces." Benedict is having hot chocolate in a little cafe in Georgetown as she talks over a cell phone to a reporter. The kids have gone shopping somewhere nearby. The Rogue Valley group flew to Washington, D.C., on Wednesday and attended a party for George W. Bush Thursday night with the likes of former heavyweight champion boxer Muhammad Ali and singer Ricky Martin. "We could see the Bushes and Cheneys really well," Benedict says. "The kids kept saying it felt like they were in a whole different world." Benedict teaches fourth grade at Brighton Academy in Grants Pass. When the chance came up in July to attend the inauguration, her fourth-grade kids were already committed to another trip, so she invited sixth, seventh-, eighth- and ninth-graders from Applegate School. She says all the youngsters were Bush supporters. Benedict says the most moving part of the journey was a visit to the Holocaust Museum Thursday morning. The museum documents and commemorates victims of Nazi murder in World War II, mostly Jews. "I really don�t even have words to describe it," Benedict says. "They came out speechless. They kept saying, �Why? Why?� " The kids saw the Ford�s Theater, where Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, Planet Hollywood and the Hard Rock Cafe. They took in the Supreme Court, all the big memorials, the National Archives with the U.S. Constitution, the Smithsonian Institution. On Friday night, they danced away the evening in tuxedos and gowns at the Hilton. On inauguration day, they saw protesters. "But it was peaceful," she says. "People were kind to one another." It was miserably cold when first Dick Cheney, then Bush took the oath of office, with sleet blown by a driving wind. The group skipped the parade. They already had plenty of memories, and besides, there was shopping to be done. Reach reporter Bill Varble at 776-4478 or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2000 Mail Tribune, Inc.