[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 73 (Friday, June 9, 2006)]
[House]
[Pages H3705-H3707]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
HONORING THE HOUSE PAGES
(Mr. SHIMKUS asked and was given permission to address the House for
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Speaker, I would like the pages to come on down and
join me in the well of the Chamber, please. If you could fill in the
seats in these first two rows and try to stay in the central part if
you can.
Well, I have had the great privilege over many years, some people
would say a great curse, but I would say great privilege, to be
chairman of the page board for now a good handful of number of years.
And so I have been able to experience this time in thanking the pages a
couple times now and it is never easy. It is never the thing you want
to do, but it is the thing that we all learn in life, that life goes
on.
We as Members of the House want to thank you for your service first
and foremost. You are an integral part of what we do here, and as we
have said to many of you when we welcomed you here months ago, you have
a unique opportunity to see the inner workings of the House of
Representatives, an opportunity that I am sure many people would pay to
do, but you do it as a service rendered to your country.
Hopefully, we at the Federal level continue to support this program,
not just so you at this moment and this time of your life see how we
operate and what we do, but then we do believe that somewhere in the
future you will continue in this public service part of your experience
to help make the world and our country a better place. And whether that
is involved in partisan politics, which I think is an honorable cause,
or that is running for office
[[Page H3706]]
yourself or being a good voter, being somewhat involved in the process,
being concerned about your local community, it really takes individuals
to step up to be leaders. And you really cannot be a member involved in
the page program and not experience all those aspects about commitment
to the government, to your country and as service to other people.
So thank you for what you have done. To highlight that for future
generations, I am going to submit the list of the page program for the
year 2005 to the Clerk so that it gets placed into the official
Congressional Record from now on so when you have children or
grandchildren and they ask you what you did as juniors in high school,
you can say, oh, I was a page. And they would say, no, you were not.
And you say, check the Record, there is my name.
Mr. Speaker, the following is the list of the page program for 2005-
2006:
U.S. House of Representatives, 2005-2006 Pages
1. Stephen Archer (NY)
2. Arielle Askren (OR)
3. John Atsalis (NH)
4. Katelyn Baird (FL)
5. Jack Barnhill (MI)
6. John Bell (SC)
7. Katie Bellantone (IL)
8. Vitaliy Benz (AL)
9. Adam Brault (MA)
10. Elizabeth Breen (CA)
11. Phoebe Brosnan (VA)
12. Sarah Brehm (MN)
13. Susan Carr (PA)
14. Sara Dillion (CT)
15. Rachel Douglas (PA)
16. Michelle Elkins (CA)
17. Linwood Fields (TX)
18. Stephanie Fleming (MO)
19. Robert Forsythe (WI)
20. William French, Jr. (VA)
21. Kelly Freund (PA)
22. Richard Frohlichstein (MO)
23. Jeanette Garcia (NY)
24. Elizabeth Gartzke (FL)
25. Chelsea Goldstein (MD)
26. Jorge Granillo (TX)
27. Christopher Guizlo (KS)
28. Travis Hargett (OH)
29. Shataya Hawley (NJ)
30. John Hayes (KY)
31. Steven Henderson (NC)
32. Sieglinde Hindrichs (VA)
33. Nathaniel Hutcheson (FL)
34. Lap Huynh (CA)
35. Eric Imhof (VA)
36. Sergio Jimenez (AZ)
37. Ellen Johnson (WI)
38. Taylor Krebs (OH)
39. Henna Mahmood (NY)
40. Hannah Marrs (CA)
41. Jenna Matecki (IL)
42. Emily Medcalf (CA)
43. Ryan McHenry (WI)
44. Frank Moran (MA)
45. Mary Ellen Nocero (NY)
46. Elliot Osgood (CT)
47. Jody Owens (NC)
48. Liliana Pereira (NJ)
49. Mary Jo Pham (MA)
50. Michelle Ramirez (AZ)
51. Ivvette Rios (AZ)
52. Alixe Ryan (LA)
53. Joseph Schmitz (NE)
54. Matthew Sheppard (FL)
55. Stephanie Shifalo (MS)
56. Saul Spady (WA)
57. Andrea Spencer (AZ)
58. Christopher Stergalas (MI)
59. Travis Trawick (TX)
60. Nancy Waters (WA)
61. John Vance (TX)
62. Michaela Wilkes Klein (MD)
=========================== NOTE ===========================
June 9, 2006--On Page H 3706 under the list of Pages names, the
following appeared: 3. John Atsalias (NH) 9. Adan Brault (MA) 12.
Sara Brehm (MN) 13. Susan Carr 36. Sergio Jimenez 37. Ellen
Jobnson (WI) 42. Emily Medcaf (CA) 51. Ivvette Rioz (AZ)
The online version should be corrected to read: 3. John Atsalis
(NH) 9. Adam Brault (MA) 12. Sarah Brehm (MN) 13. Susan Carr (PA)
36. Sergio Jimenez (AZ) 37. Ellen Johnson (WI) 42. Emily Medcalf
(CA) 51. Ivvette Rios (AZ)
========================= END NOTE =========================
Mr. Speaker, with every farewell there is always the good times of
telling stories and remembering friendships.
Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. SHIMKUS. I yield to the gentleman from Illinois.
Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Let me just add some accolades. But first of
all, I want to commend first my friend and colleague from Illinois,
Representative Shimkus, for the tremendous dedication and service and
leadership that he has provided to the page program as its chairman.
But let me also commend and congratulate all of you for the tremendous
service that you have provided. Many of us make use of your skills,
make use of your energy, of your legs, your ability to go from one
place to the other and bring things, but I am amazed at the number of
people that I have met here who are now Members of this body who at one
time served as pages.
So I suspect that in the future we will see some of you here as
Members from the community where you live and perhaps we will even see
one of you sitting in the big chair up in the White House.
Congratulations to all of you. Thank you so much for your service.
Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend, Mr. Davis from Chicago,
but I am a legislator and I believe that the big chair is the Speaker's
chair. So I am an article I guy, not an article II guy.
But having said that, with living and working and sweating and being
together for all these opportunities, there are some very important
historical events that have occurred here and I said that when you came
in. I am not sure what they will be, but here in Washington there is
always something that happens that is unexpected. Like surviving the
Page Plague I, where it was hard for us to find a page because you were
all sick. And then we had at the second semester, mini-Page Plague
which affected a good number of folks. I see my friend Jim Kolbe here,
but maybe we can take some lessons here on bird flu and epidemics based
upon studying the page class and how they survived the illnesses.
You got to attend a State of the Union address, and probably it is
historical in the fact that we had so many, four, joint sessions of
Congress with leaders from around the world, just most recently the
President of Latvia, but the President of Liberia, the Prime Minister
of Italy and the Prime Minister of Israel. All very momentous
occasions.
You all really being in tune to the current cultural climate have
been able to observe and participate in many of the celebrity sightings
that occur here which is always a challenge as we work around here
because we really do not want you trying to seek out these celebrities
but somehow you know where they are at and where they are going. Like
Dave Chappell or Chuck Norris, Queen Latifa, Glenn Close, George Lucas,
Bono, I pronounced it right, Jessica Simpson, and of course we cannot
forget Brangelina. I read this and I said, Brangelina? And they
followed up as they knew I was going to say this. For those of you who
do not know, like me, that is Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.
Some of you had the opportunity to see numerous cities, New York,
Baltimore, Philadelphia, to name a few; and then there was the black-
out in the Capitol. Always momentous. And then I still cannot get true
clarification of what occurred, but there was something about being
locked out of the page cage for some reason. But Ms. Ivester and Miss
Sampson, they are around here keeping an eye on you, would not
elaborate on it any further, protecting you. All I could get from them
was some mumbling and shaking their heads and walking away without
comment.
I know you all had a great time on your prom. I didn't know I was
that powerful, but I was able to make sure that we had no votes that
day so all you young ladies could spend all the hours you needed to get
prepared for the prom event.
Being a page is a special program. We love having you here. We know
you are going to do great things in the future. It is a great
investment that we make. But we also understand that you are high
school juniors, and that balance between adulthood and adolescence,
there are trials and tribulations, but you all have performed well.
One of the worst things that I have to do as the head of the page
board is the disciplinary actions, and it is great for me to say that
you all have stuck together and I haven't been able to exercise the
full force of my authority and that you are to be commended for that.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend, the gentleman from Arizona, Mr.
Jim Kolbe, who has always had a great relationship with the page
program. I appreciate his mentorship and this will be his last farewell
also.
Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Illinois for
yielding. And I get the chance tonight at your quasi-graduation, your
finishing exercise, tonight to say a few more words to you so I will
save most of the thoughts I have, which probably are not terribly
profound anyhow, until this evening.
I did want to be here on the floor. I think it is appropriate, as a
matter of fact, that this is the last time I will speak to you and the
last vote that you got to see was on Congressman Kolbe's appropriations
bill for foreign operations. So you can say the last set of votes the
last day was spent on the floor with Congressman Kolbe in the
[[Page H3707]]
debate on the bill that he was responsible for.
It has been a great pleasure. It gives me an added sentimental value
to this occasion.
I think most of you know that I have a special relationship with the
page program that stems from the fact that I started as a page. Albeit
as some of you know it was over on that other side in that other body
over there, but you will forgive me for that. At that time it was
really run as one single program.
I have to say that the page experience, as you can probably tell from
where I am standing today, is one of those things, those experiences
that had a profound change on my life. But having started here as a
page, I promised Peggy and Miss Ivester and the others that I would not
tell you all the stories about the things that I did, that we did as a
page. So I promised not to tell you the story about how we hauled the
English teacher's Volkswagon bug up the steps of the Library of
Congress and planted it in the middle of the platform up there. And I
promised not to tell you about the story of how we faked the suicide of
one of the pages jumping from the balcony and there was a page spread
out down below.
Mr. SHIMKUS. If the gentleman would yield, you would not have
survived my mentorship as the chairman of the page board.
Mr. KOLBE. There was no question that almost all of us in the page
program would not have survived the mentorship.
I promised not to tell you those kinds of things. Fortunately, it is
on your last day anyhow, so you are probably not going to find time to
do too many of those things today.
The gentleman from Illinois was talking about the celebrity
sightings. Some people would think there are celebrities enough here in
the House of Representatives and in the Senate and with all the joint
sessions that we have. But I remember not too long ago when I had that
actor. What's his name? Oh, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie down in my
office down below here on the first floor just below the Chamber here.
{time} 1500
When I finished the meeting and came out, there were a bunch of
secretaries and few pages there with their cameras, and I thought,
wonderful, they want pictures of me. But no, none of them were
interested at all in having a picture with me. It was this actor and
actress that were there.
So I guess we know that really Members of Congress are pretty second-
rate when it comes to celebrity sightings, and sometimes maybe we are
just a little bit of chopped liver.
But I do want to say to you that this experience obviously is one
that you may not realize it now, but you are going to carry away with
you some very important things, some things that will change your life
in ways that you probably cannot even imagine right now.
It does not mean that all of you are going into politics, because
probably only a handful of you might. As a matter of fact, in my
graduating class at the page school, we went all the way through high
school in those days. In my graduating class, I am the only one that
ultimately stayed in elective politics.
But there, it does not matter. This experience will make a difference
to you. It will make a difference not only in your school and make a
difference not only in the way you look on things and events in the
world, but hopefully will make you more of a citizen of the world and a
citizen of the United States, and I think this is the important thing.
Many people ask us why do we continue this program. Let us face it.
We could do this a lot easier with a lot less expense if we just
contracted out and hired some people to serve as messengers, but year
after year, the Congress of the United States supports this program for
young men and women, and through the course of the more than 150, or
really almost 200 years, several thousand young men and women like you
have come through this program and had this experience because we think
it makes a difference, and we think that your experience becomes the
experience of the future leaders of the United States.
So I hope that whatever you do when you go back, you will think about
this program, and, of course, you will think about your friends, the
friendships you have made here and you will maintain those friendships
and you will come back for your reunions. You always come back for the
first year reunion, 5-year reunion, 10-year reunion. It is wonderful to
have these friendships, but you will also remember what you learned
here and you will incorporate into your daily lives and into the
thinking of whatever you do, if you are in business, if you become a
physician, if you become a lawyer, if you become a teacher. All of
these things will be valuable to you.
So you have had a rare, rare experience, and I hope that you can
appreciate that. But I want to say now in closing how much we
appreciate what you do. You make our lives just a little bit easier
every day. You are the grease that makes the wheel go round without
squeaking quite so much, and sometimes we take it for granted and we do
not realize how much of a difference that you make in our lives and the
work of this body.
So it is my great privilege to be here to say thank you to you for
the wonderful job that you have done for us, and I hope that I will see
many of you in the years ahead, that we will stay in touch and I will
follow your career, your successful careers in business, but most
important, in your lives with your families and with the people that
you interact with. God bless you all and God bless America.
Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his
comments, and every time Jim Kolbe speaks, as you have heard in the
last comments at the end of the appropriation bill, the Foreign Ops
bill in which Members from both sides, especially the Democrats, talked
about his integrity, his commitment, his honesty, and those are
comments from the heart, and you will get to hear him one more time at
the graduation ceremony.
I bring you thanks from all the folks who you have worked with, the
dorm staff, the school staff and of course, the floor staff here who
are always well represented in keeping track of where you are.
Thank you for keeping track of each other during this time. Thank you
for keeping each other safe and being friends to those who needed
friends at that time, and thanks for keeping each other out of trouble.
Those things that you have learned during this time, let us hope that
you carry them on with you, that you will just make this world a better
place.
So thank you. God bless you, and God bless the United States of
America. We appreciate your service.
____________________