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HomeNewsArchives'A Special Moment in Time:' UVI Watches the Inauguration

'A Special Moment in Time:' UVI Watches the Inauguration

Jan. 20, 2009 — It was "a special moment in time," and more than 100 people gathered to share it Tuesday in the Great Hall at the University of the Virgin Island's St. Croix campus.
Students, staff and members of the community sat before a giant projection screen showing the inauguration of Barack Obama as 44th president of the United States, cheering, whooping and praying at what all agreed was a historic moment.
"It's a moment in time," student government leader Cecily Lawrence said. "A special moment in time."
The university set up the viewing area so the entire community could come together and share it.
"I wouldn't miss this for anything in the world," said Maria Friday, an administrative specialist at the school's residence hall. "This is an historic moment for the entire human species."
Friday said it was a day — a day when the United States inaugurated its first African-American president — that she had known would come someday.
"When I was a little girl, I told my dad we'd see a man walk on the moon someday," she said. "I knew it because I'd read about it in my science books. And I knew this day would come, too."
But the fact that she'd know it would come did not lessen the emotional impact. Friday was among those who stood and cheered, her eyes bright, as Obama stood to take the oath of office.
Don Cox, a retired physics professor from the University of Wisconsin, didn't want to miss the event, and because his house is under construction he had no television. So he drove down to take in the moment. He said the outcome of the election didn't surprise him.
"I believed he deserved it, and I believed he'd get it," Cox said.
It was a boisterous gathering. The crowd cheered when Hillary Clinton was introduced on the stand. When outgoing President George W. Bush was introduced, many in the UVI crowd stood, waved and chanted, "Goodbye!"
One member of the audience lowered his head, hands clasped in prayer throughout the invocation by the Rev. Rick Warren.
"I was listening to the prayer of the invocation and praying along with him," said Julius Wilson, director of the V.I. Bureau of Corrections. "He was saying some things that I think all Americans were praying."
As excited as the members of the crowd in the Great Hall had been during the preliminaries, they exploded when Obama went forward to take the oath of office. People stood cheering, waving hands in the air and hugging. They listened to his inaugural address with rapt attention, cheering along with the crowds in the nation's capital during the highlights of his speech.
Afterward, as the crowd began to clear, Lawrence was asked if the moment had been everything she expected.
"Oh yes," she sighed, her eyes beaming. "Oh yes."
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