Seven Mason City High School students back from DC trip to take in inauguration festivities (AUDIO)

MASON CITY — Seven Mason City High School students were in Washington DC last week for the Inauguration festivities. It’s the third trip like this that teacher John Lee has led to the nation’s capital as students not only plan to attend the inauguration ceremony but also see some of the other sights.

Olivia Wickman says it was an enjoyable experience.   “We all had such a great time being able to see the history that we’ve learned about in classes. It’s definitely a bigger city than here. It was cool to be in that environment and see the fast-paced environment of the city. We all enjoyed that a lot and being able to walk to all these different places.”

Cold weather forced the inauguration indoors, and Wickman says while they were not able to see it in person, they enjoyed a watch party that they attended.  “It was pretty cool. We were inside a room inside the hotel for the watch party with other students. It was probably near 100 students in there, and we were all able to watch the speech and the inauguration together and discuss what was happening, and the points of President Trump’s speech, and we were able to talk about that together.”

Johnathan Thangaraj says he enjoyed all the energy of Washington surrounding the celebration. He says the most unique part of the trip was touring the US Capitol building.  “We did have a connection. Our teacher’s former student is a communications manager for one of the representatives, so we were able to get inside and get a first-hand tour of the building, especially places that most people don’t get to see, like the tunnels that the staff and all the representatives & senators use to travel inside the building. That was cool to see.”

Thangaraj says being a smaller group made the experience more enjoyable.  “I think it was cool that even though I was pretty good friends with some of the students that were going on the trip but also didn’t know some of them as well. Usually the group that goes on this trip every four years is a pretty large group, but  this year was a smaller group of only seven kids. It was nice how the ones that didn’t know each other got to know each other pretty well, and we were all pretty close by the end, and it was really fun.”

You can see more pictures from the trip by clicking here to take you to the “MC in DC” Facebook page.

You can hear more comments from our full interviews with Wickman and Thangaraj via the audio players below.

Wickman interview   

Thangaraj interview