Riviere had won the Presidential Inaugural Committee’s “Ticket to History” essay writing contest. His five paragraph essay on what the inauguration means to him was one of 10 winners out of more than 250,000 submissions from across the country. Riviere wrote about his experiences in Kenya as a Peace Corps volunteer in early 2008. Since Kenya is the ancestral homeland of Obama, Riviere said that excitement among Kenyans about his candidacy was unreserved. “Everyone knew Barack Obama,” he said, “And everyone was confident that he was The Man.” Only a few days after Obama’s historic primary victory in Iowa, violence erupted across Kenya due to a disputed presidential election there. Riviere was forced to evacuate and, although he made it home safely to Montgomery County, he was saddened and disappointed that his Peace Corps tour of duty had been cut short. Almost a year later, after Obama had been elected president, Riviere decided that he wanted to go to the inauguration. But a call to the office of U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) revealed that no tickets were available. A Cardin staffer recommended that he submit an essay in the “Ticket to History” contest. Riviere did just that. He sat down at a computer and, in a fit of inspiration, wrote an essay in five minutes. “It wasn’t five minutes of thinking,” he recalled. “It was five minutes of pouring.”
Kenya RPCV James Riviere had a reserved front row seat for the swearing in of President Barack Obama
Essay Wins Tickets To Inaugural
By David Schultz/The Connection
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
DESPITE BEING a native of the Washington D.C. area, James Riviere had never been to a Presidential inauguration. That changed this week when Riviere had a reserved front row seat for the swearing in of President Barack Obama.
The Cabin John resident, who works for an international non-profit group in Arlington, had tickets to the swearing-in, the parade and an inaugural ball. After the ceremonies, he and a friend were scheduled to stay in a hotel in the District. And all of this was for free.
Riviere had won the Presidential Inaugural Committee’s “Ticket to History” essay writing contest. His five paragraph essay on what the inauguration means to him was one of 10 winners out of more than 250,000 submissions from across the country.
Riviere wrote about his experiences in Kenya as a Peace Corps volunteer in early 2008. Since Kenya is the ancestral homeland of Obama, Riviere said that excitement among Kenyans about his candidacy was unreserved. “Everyone knew Barack Obama,” he said, “And everyone was confident that he was The Man.”
Only a few days after Obama’s historic primary victory in Iowa, violence erupted across Kenya due to a disputed presidential election there. Riviere was forced to evacuate and, although he made it home safely to Montgomery County, he was saddened and disappointed that his Peace Corps tour of duty had been cut short.
Almost a year later, after Obama had been elected president, Riviere decided that he wanted to go to the inauguration. But a call to the office of U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) revealed that no tickets were available. A Cardin staffer recommended that he submit an essay in the “Ticket to History” contest.
Riviere did just that. He sat down at a computer and, in a fit of inspiration, wrote an essay in five minutes. “It wasn’t five minutes of thinking,” he recalled. “It was five minutes of pouring.”
Two weeks ago, Riviere got a call from a Presidential Inaugural Committee representative informing him that he was a winner. “I didn’t believe it,” he said. “Not like in shock or awe, but more like ‘This has to be a joke.’”
Other winners of the contest include a teacher at an inner-city Baltimore school, an Army officer whose husband is serving in Iraq and a former financial director who joined the New York City Fire Department after the Sept. 11 attacks. Since Riviere lived in area and didn’t need transportation, the committee offered to fly one of his friends from her home in Hawaii to Washington for the ceremony.
For Riviere, winning the contest and getting to see the inauguration is a dream come true. “This inauguration means something much greater than myself, or Kenya, or even the United States,” he wrote in his essay. “What this inauguration means is something far greater: redemption.”
