MADISON TOWNSHIP, Ohio - As the nation's capital prepares for a presidential inauguration, eight teens from Butler County are preparing for a trip of a lifetime.
The eight seniors from Madison High School say even their families are jealous. They are headed to Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, joining seniors from Carlisle High School and Butler Tech.
The students say this trip is more about history than about politics.
Every year A.J. Huff, communications director of Madison Local Schools, has a number of interns who work with her. But it is only every four years that those students get to attend an inauguration.
"This is actually the second time that I've taken a group. We went four years ago," Huff said.
Hannah Snelling said the trip has been in the works for months – before the election. They planned to go no matter who won.
"We've known we were going to go for years since they did it in 2012, but we decided we were going to go around August, so it was still kind of like, 'Heads or tails, what's it going to be?'" she said. "And they're like, 'Do you want to go regardless?' And we're all like, 'Yeah.'"
And in this part of the Tri-State that heavily favored Donald Trump, many others are wishing they could go.
"I know my whole family is jealous of the fact that I get to go. They're super excited for me," said Taylor Phelps. "It's kind of a once-in-a-lifetime thing to witness an exchange of power like that. I think it's so exciting and I can't wait."
"I'm super anxious," said Kelli Bush. "I'm really good friends with all of the people I intern with, so I'm really excited to go on a trip with them. I think it's going to be a really cool experience … that not a lot of people get to see in their life."
Huff said she is encouraging them to keep an open mind.
"This in particular is going to be a really interesting inauguration obviously," Huff said. "I've encouraged them to just go in with a really open mind. They're going to see a lot of things both on the positive side and on the negative side."
The group has a full agenda planned.
"We're hitting the Smithsonian Museum. We have reservations at the Holocaust Museum. At the National Cathedral one of the evenings. We'll be doing a bus tour of all of the monuments at night.. So we have a full schedule right up until Friday, the day of the inauguration," Huff said.
One problem, though, is a shortage of tickets. They are taking 40-plus students but only have about 25 tickets. They are hoping to find tickets for their entire group before Friday.
