“I was preparing for the worst,” the Middletown native said. “I didn’t want to be disappointed.”
Her husband offered this encouragement: “We’re going to make it. We’re going to make it.”
Then at 11 a.m. Monday, six hours after they arrived from the hotel in Virginia, the Carters were handed three of the 20,000 tickets given on a first-come, first-serve basis to those who waited.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
When it was time to pass through security, Carter said a woman in front of them had a large razor blade confiscated. All women were told to remove the contents of their purses and throw their purses in trash cans.
They ran from the arena entrance to their fourth-level section and found seats that overlooked where Trump and Vance would stand later and where the parade participants, including the Middletown High School marching band and cheerleaders, would match.
The inauguration, moved from the National Mall to the U.S. Capitol Rotunda due to freezing temperatures in the D.C. area, was shown on screens throughout the arena, and hours later, the parade was held.
Carter said she will never forget watching the inauguration, then sitting in the arena as Trump, his wife, Melania, Vance, his wife, Usha, and their three young children, Ewan, Vivek and Mirabel, entered.
“Being in that environment was so electric,” she said Tuesday morning, after sleeping in, exhausted from Monday. “It was surreal. I had to catch my breath for half a minute.”
One of the highlights, she said, was watching Vance interact with his three children, whose lives have been turned upside down since their father was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2023 and vice president in November.
“His children make him seem so real,” Carter said. “It hit me when I looked at his children, then I looked at our son. He’s a real person from our town. That‘s just JD, not the vice president.”
Several Butler County Republicans and Trump supporters were scheduled to attend the inauguration, but when it was moved to the U.S. Capitol Rotunda, they watched it together in a hotel ballroom.
State Rep. Thomas Hall, R-Madison Twp., called his time in Washington, where he attended several functions, “the trip of a lifetime.”
He was told that Ohio had the largest delegation in Washington.
There was “a sense of excitement in the room” and Hall called the inauguration “a special moment in our local history.”
Butler County Auditor Nancy Nix also watched the inauguration from the ballroom, then attended a party for U.S Rep. Warren Davidson and finished the night by watching some of the National Championship college football game between Ohio State and Notre Dame.
Less than 12 hours after Vance, 40, was sworn in as the 50th vice president, his alma mater captured its ninth national championship.
“This was JD’s day,” Nix said. “You can’t make that stuff up.”
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