The Scoop On Obama’s Trip To The Forty Acres

By Lynn Freehill in Blog on August 6, 2010 at 4:54 pm | 15 Comments

“The president’s coming to campus! The president’s coming to campus!” Word popped around campus Thursday afternoon in a flash.

There will be road closures, airport delays, and security sweeps on Monday as Air Force One lands at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport and President Obama’s motorcade makes its way to the Forty Acres.

The topic of the speech he’ll give isn’t clear yet — something education-related — but the intrigue of a presidential visit got everyone buzzing. Who would get to go? And where would he speak?

By 6 p.m. on Thursday, Gregory Gym’s website wasn’t playing coy. “The University is excited to host President Obama on Monday, August 9, and Gregory Gym has been chosen as the venue for his speech,” the site said. 

The ace reporters at the Associated Press didn’t get that memo and had to resort to anonymous sources that still didn’t confirm the site.

“A Texas Democratic source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information, said that the event will be in a facility on campus that holds 2,000 people,” the AP story read in the Houston Chronicle on Friday. 

Ah, well. We’re sure they’ll nail all the details when Obama arrives. 

Speaking of who gets to go, your Alcalde editors hope to be among the lucky 2,000 in the audience. We’ve asked the White House for our media creds, so we’ll keep you posted.

Photo: Then-candidate Obama debated then-candidate Hillary Clinton on UT’s campus in 2008. Photo by LBJ School of Public Affairs.