[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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