[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 91 (Thursday, June 7, 2007)]
[House]
[Pages H6164-H6165]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
SAYING GOODBYE TO THE PAGES
(Mr. KILDEE asked and was given permission to address the House for 1
minute.)
Mr. KILDEE. Mr. Speaker, today is a day of mixed emotion for all of
us who work with the House Page Program. It is time to say goodbye to
70 aspiring young individuals who have served the U.S. Congress for the
last several months.
On behalf of the U.S. House of Representatives, I would like to thank
you all for your hard work, your commitment and dedication to the Page
Program. I know you have made your families, friends and communities
back home proud, and I am certain that they will be glad to receive you
back home.
As difficult as it is to say goodbye, I trust that you will take with
you memories, experiences and friends that will last a lifetime. Take
with you also our sincere thanks for a job well done. Your hard work
and your dedication have proven that you are young people with
strength, courage and character. We look forward to hearing about all
your many future successes.
The gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Sutton) joins me in these thoughts,
but we will not say goodbye but rather farewell until we meet again.
And Mr. Speaker, before I yield to other Members, I would like insert
the names of the pages at this point in the Congressional Record.
Spring 2007 House Page List
Sam Balasz
Joshua Britton
Abullah Binshaeig
Geoffrey Blumenthal
Ian Cameron
Bryant Canales
Allison Clark
Elizabeth Cotton
Daija Covington
Sarah Coughlan
Ann Crawford-Roberts
Christopher Day
Richie Day
Skukuae Edwards
Taylor Farquharson
Kelsey Griffee
Tarel Hairston
Portsha Franklin
Elizabeth Hartig
Kelsey Hill
Jeffrey Joh
Robert Joyce
Abebe Kebede
Keegan Kirkpatrick
Nathan Khosla
Alexa Klein
Breanna Lai
Noah Lindenfeld
Jonathan Lesser
Rachel Licata
Isabella Miller
Amanda Markovich
Blair Matthews
Victoria Milkovich
Soreya Moody
Liliana Palacios
Jake Petzold
Elon Rhodes
Taylor Riddle
Paige Romer
Arriel Rubenstein
Alexander Seiden
Corey Shears
Virginia Smith
Shaan Yadav-Ranjan
Meghan Ward
Briana Aleman
Amy Brinkerhoff
Marion Burke
Starla Burton
Joseph Cannella
Logan Craghead
Katelyn DeFrangesco
Ryan Drager
Callie Farlow
Nicholas Hall
Rachel Koroknay
Nicholas Lanoue
Nickolas Lupo
Aubrie-Marks
Colleen Mattingly
James ``Matt'' McClure
Bryan Quach
Heaven Randolph
Adam Reynolds
Katie Rieder
Christine Salomon
Ryan Till
James ``Carson'' Ure
Cassandra West
I yield now to the ranking Republican member of the Page Board, the
gentlewoman from West Virginia (Mrs. Capito).
Mrs. CAPITO. Mr. Speaker, I'd like to thank my colleague from
Michigan for his leadership on the Page Board and for his deep
compassion for what the Page Program has done for the youth of America
historically and for this particular group today.
As he said, we're not here to say goodbye; we're here to say farewell
and Godspeed and good luck.
As any ending is, the ending of this year is a new beginning for you
all to return to your homes, your families and have a good summer at
the same time.
I'm very proud of the 70 pages, 33 girls, 37 boys, that represent 26
States and one territory, and I would like to congratulate you on the
completion of your Page Program.
I asked several pages throughout the day, have you enjoyed your time
here? How has it been? And one said to me very poignantly, he said, I
have enjoyed every single day. And I think that is shared across the
board by the 70 bright smiling faces I see at the back of the Chamber
today.
It certainly has been a historic year for this Congress under the
stewardship of the first woman Speaker of the House of Representatives.
So, for all the female pages, it has been a source of great pride for
all of us. So I thank you for your leadership.
I think it's important to note that not only will we be seeing you
again, we'll be seeing you in different iterations of your life, as
many former pages are now Members of Congress, Senators, corporate
leaders, Governors and future leaders of our States and our Nation.
So I say, thank you, from the Cloak Room on the Republican side. Ms.
Pat and Ms. Doris say thank you very much for all of the help you gave
to them in helping us, and on the other side, I'm sure that's true.
So I say, good luck, make sure you don't forget us, and I won't
forget the most I think vibrant day in the House of Representatives,
which is the day that the President comes to give his State of the
Union address, and the first thing I notice is the excitement of the
pages, getting to see that for the first time, lined in the back,
hoping to catch a glimpse or a handshake or a pat on the back from
their President.
[[Page H6165]]
So good luck to all of you and thank you very much, and I thank the
gentleman from Michigan for yielding.
Mr. KILDEE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from West Virginia.
I would yield to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) who's been
very active in supporting the Page Program.
Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding, and I want to
say to Mr. Kildee, those of you who have been our pages and have made
such an extraordinary contribution to this institution, Mr. Kildee has
been on the Page Board for almost, as a matter of fact, maybe as long
as I've been a Member of Congress, which is longer than, by almost a
factor of two, not quite, all of you have been alive.
You come to this institution with a great responsibility, in my
opinion. You are extraordinary young people in high school, learning
not only about government but learning about all the other skills that
you will need to know to be successful and to help your country be
successful.
This program, I think, is an extraordinarily important program
because of what it does. It gives to you at a young age while you are
learning the opportunity to see firsthand your democracy in action, to
see those who have been selected by your parents, by your brothers and
sisters and aunts and uncles and your neighbors and friends to
represent them in the Congress of the United States.
You have been given this unique opportunity that a very, very small
segment of your fellow cohorts, your generation, will have had, to come
firsthand to see the Members, who are all human beings, who all have
ideas, who all have passions and fears and visions and desires like
your parents and you have and who come here on behalf of their
constituents to try to do good for their country.
As president of the Maryland Senate in the 1970s, I had the
opportunity to run the Page Program in the State Senate, and I was
always hopeful that those young people, who were your age, 16, 17 years
of age, they were seniors, for the most part, you're juniors, would
leave their service in this institution and in that institution with a
positive perspective, with a thought that this democracy, founded so
many centuries ago, still is a viable democracy that, as Winston
Churchill said, is the best of all other forms of government tried.
It is, as you have seen, not perfect, but it has created one of the
greatest societies that has ever existed, not the only great society
but one of the greatest, and you have helped us make it function.
And sometimes you will think to yourself, well, I didn't get on the
floor and speak; you're obviously not a Member; and perhaps you didn't
write a great treatise on this issue or that issue and will feel from
time to time, well, all I did was run this envelope from this office to
that office or from the floor of the House to someplace else or, from
time to time, get information for a Member who was debating something
on the floor. But your service made this institution run better.
John Kennedy was a hero of mine, and, frankly, I got into politics
because of John Kennedy. He came to the campus of the University of
Maryland, talked about the difference that young people could make. He
spoke on this floor at least on three occasions where he gave his State
of the Union.
{time} 1745
In his inaugural address, he said to all of us that the energy, the
faith, the devotion we bring to this endeavor will light our country
and all who serve it, and the glow from that fire can truly light the
world.
Pages, I hope you leave from here with a better knowledge of how the
people's House works and with a renewed conviction that your democracy
works, perhaps, better than you thought or some had told you it did and
that you will leave this place with an energy and a faith and a
devotion to letting your colleagues know how well their democracy works
and with the conviction that if they participate fully in this
democracy that it will work even better.
Thank you for your service. Thank you for what you do in your
communities, in your schools and in your communities, and thank you for
transmitting the knowledge you have learned to literally thousands of
your friends and colleagues. Godspeed.
Mr. KILDEE. From the bottoms of our hearts, we thank you, God bless
you.
Mr. WICKER. I wonder if the gentleman would yield?
Mr. KILDEE. I would be happy to yield.
Mr. WICKER. I thank my friend for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, let me just say, not everyone within the sound of my
voice realizes how hard these young people have worked, some of them,
for the last semester, some of them for the past 9 or 10 months, but
almost to a person they have been in the page school. There will be a
graduation ceremony tomorrow, I understand.
They get up in the wee hours of the morning and go to school in a
very rigorous academic course, and then they put in a full day. On
those frequent occasions when we are in session late at night, they are
here with us. So we appreciate their hard work. It has been a great
learning experience for them, I know; and I just want them to know how
much we appreciate it.
They have been here during momentous times. They have seen the
President of the United States, as my friend from Maryland stated. They
have seen heads of state come and go in the building and witnessed
debates concerning the great issues of our time, issues today
concerning the very question of life itself. Issues of war and peace
and billions of dollars being debated, they have been able to witness.
Just as significantly as all of those issues, they have witnessed the
orderly transfer of power that we have seen year in and year out,
Congress in and Congress out in this great institution. The transfer of
power not at the point of a gun, as a result of a battle, but as a
result of Americans, one by one, going eventually in the millions and
voting in the ballot at the ballot box.
Sometimes we are delighted with that orderly transfer of power, as I
was in 1994 and 1995, when I first came here as a Member of a new
majority. Sometimes, as occurred last November and this past January, I
was not particularly overly delighted, but it is profound, nonetheless,
that we make those changes in government at the ballot box and not at
the point of a gun.
In 1967, I had the privilege for only 1 month to serve as a page in
this great Chamber for this great body. It was a life-changing
experience for a young boy from Pontotoc, Mississippi; and I daresay
for the young people lining the back rail and listening to our words
this afternoon it has been, in so many ways, a life-changing experience
for them.
It occurred to me during that brief stay here as a page that I might
someday, if given an opportunity and if luck came through, come back
here as a Member of the House of Representatives. I had that great
opportunity.
But to so many of them, undoubtedly, they have no desire whatever to
come back here as a Member but to go on and serve their country in
other respects, in their professions, perhaps in the military, or
perhaps some of you also in public service.
But I would simply say that, in closing, they have had such a rare
opportunity to serve their country in a way that so few young people
have been able to do. We appreciate it very, very, very much. We wish
each and every one of them Godspeed as they go back to their homes and
families.
I thank my friend for yielding the time.
Mr. KILDEE. I thank the gentleman for his very fine words.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time. Godspeed to you
all.
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