Clinton supporters brave early hours, cold temps

By MICHAEL WANBAUGH, Tribune Staff Writer

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Students use a light to keep warm outside Mishawaka High School as they wait Friday to see Hillary Clinton. (Tribune Photo/JIM RIDER)

By Tiffany Griffin

Story Created: Mar 28, 2008 at 8:12 AM EST

Story Updated: Mar 28, 2008 at 12:07 PM EST

MISHAWAKA — As the day began to brighten and with a half moon still hanging in the sky, a shivering line of people jutted from the west entrance of the Mishawaka High School gymnasium and spilled into the courtyard.

People wearing school letter jackets and “Hillary ’08” buttons sipped convenience store coffee and waited for the world to arrive.

“It’s worth standing in the cold for a little while,” one lady who drove up early from Bremen said as she stood in line and adjusted her scarf. “Can’t say I’m so thrilled that it snowed last night.”

She is thrilled presidential hopeful and former First Lady Sen. Hillary Clinton is coming to town, essentially thrusting this proud Midwestern high school and city into the national democratic process.

By 7:30 a.m., the line was through the courtyard and encroaching on Lincoln Way East. A wall of police cars surrounded the south end of the gym as morning traffic crept alongside.

Gernhart Drive directly east of the gym was closed to traffic and essentially converted into a parking lot for television trucks.

“There’s a lot of excitement and energy coursing through the veins of the building today,” said Gregg Hixenbaugh, a School City of Mishawaka administrator. “Everybody in the corporation is just ecstatic about this opportunity.”

Clinton, who is running against Sen. Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination, is scheduled to appear here at 10:45 a.m. and conduct a town hall-style meeting about the nation’s economy.

Inside the gym, otherwise known as “The Cave,” the main stage sat empty at the south end of the hardwood floor, and law enforcement and school officials milled about with walkie talkies and cell phones held to their face.

Three sections of folding chairs filled the middle of the gym floor with a media platform set up at the north end.

School officials are planning for 4,200 people to squeeze into the gym. About 1,700 seats are reserved for the school’s student body. Doors opened at 8:45 a.m.

Clinton originally planned to appear at South Bend’s Washington High School Friday, but her campaign’s request for that venue was denied Wednesday night by the South Bend Community School Corp.

Organizers quickly made arrangements to move the event to Mishawaka. School City of Mishawaka officials approved the request late Wednesday night and worked throughout the day and into the night Thursday to prepare the gym and school for Clinton’s appearance.

“It is the unique nature of this event that has captured everybody’s imagination,” Hixenbaugh said. “It really has justified the decision of the superintendent and the school board to make these arrangements and become part of this democratic process.”

From here, Sen. Clinton will continue her tour of Indiana with campaign stops in Hammond, Fort Wayne and then Muncie. On Saturday, she will be in Indianapolis and New Albany.

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