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Inaugural speech captivated viewers throughout region
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3rd and 4th grade students at C.H. Campbell Elementary in Canfield watch a tv as the festivities for the inaugural address got underway
There were no Youngstown crimes called in during President Obama’s speech.
STAFF REPORT
President Barack Obama’s inaugural address appeared to reduce crime call-ins, shuffled school classes and delayed workday lunches as he captivated a national audience gathered around televisions.
Traditional education came to a halt for a brief time Tuesday at Paul C. Bunn Elementary School.
All eyes in every classroom were glued to the CNN television broadcast of the inauguration, said Principal Maria Pappas.
“We all watched it together,” she said, noting that even lunch was delayed by 30 minutes so the children could witness Obama’s inaugural speech.
Pappas said she directed that all classes watch the event so everyone could be a part of history.
And just as time seemed to stop for pupils at Paul C. Bunn, the inauguration may have had the same effect on criminals, police officials said.
The 911 center in Youngstown reported no criminal incidents were called in between 11:42 a.m. and 12:37 p.m. Two alarms during that time turned out to be accidental, city police said. At 12:37 p.m., a domestic violence call came in for a house on Irma Avenue.
The unincorporated areas of Mahoning County were quiet, too. Between 11:45 a.m. and 12:30 p.m., the county’s 911 center had only one alarm drop — a residence in Canfield Township — but it was canceled, said Clark A. Jones, Mahoning County Emergency Management Agency director.
The draw to Obama can be credited to his effective speaking, said Jean Palmer Heck, a speech analyst and Boardman native who said Obama has the ability talk about complicated subjects without overwhelming the common person. “I think he used his words and his poetic style to inspire people,” she said. “I was glued to the television.”
Now a resident of Zionsville, Ind., outside Indianapolis, Heck teaches effective speaking to top business leaders around the world. She said there are key techniques to speaking that Obama has mastered to draw in listeners and effectively send a message.
Using strong visual imagery, calling the audience to action, and adjusting his pitch, pace and projection lured viewers into his message and held them, Heck explained.
But it was Obama’s focus on the audience, Heck said, that may have held listeners captive from beginning to end.
Using the word “we” more than 50 times — compared with using “I” on only three occasions — Obama made listeners feel included and involved.
“It was about the audience,” she said, recalling his statements about the ancestral struggles that founded America: hard work in sweatshops and a number of wars.
“It was about them because of the variety of ways he included people,” she said. “He really pulled into our own background in so many different ways.”
Lowellville schools pupils were allowed to stay in their classrooms from noon to 12:40 p.m. so they could watch the inauguration, said Superintendent Rocco Nero. Normally the pupils change classes during that period.
“It was a historic moment, basically because of the times. There is a lot pressure on the guy,” Nero said of Obama.
Campbell Mayor John Dill and Clerk of Council Dina Hamilton watched the inauguration on their computers at work.
“It was a historic event with the first black man becoming president,” said Hamilton, whose children, pupils at St. Joseph the Provider school, also watched the inauguration at school.
“I really enjoyed it,” said Dill. “It is something our kids will be talking about for years, and it was our kids who put Obama in office.”
“I was impressed with his comment that everybody has to roll up their sleeves and work to help the nation. I think people are desperate and looking for someone to give them hope, and I think he did that,” Dill added.
At the Lawrence County Government Center in New Castle, Pa., about a half-dozen people took county Commissioner Steve Craig up on an offer to watch the inauguration on a TV in his office. A lot of county workers, he said, were able to watch it on their computers.
“I was mesmerized, quite frankly,” Craig said. “He’s a very, very eloquent speaker.”
In Sharon, Pa., city Police Chief Michael Menster said his department didn’t notice any disruption in its volume of calls during the inauguration. At home on his lunch break, he watched Obama take the oath.
When he returned to his office at the Sharon Municipal Building, he sneaked peeks at the television there while working at his desk.
“It’s interesting — how you can have a peaceful exchange of power,” Menster said. “That’s what impresses me. That’s not the case in a lot of countries.”
Michelle Kanos, an accounts payable clerk in the Boardman fiscal office, usually uses her lunch time to run errands, but she and a co-worker stayed in to watch the inauguration.
“I was intent on watching it so I took my lunch hour to watch it,” Kanos said. “I believe it was a significant event in history.”