The 'Trib' Reporter -- and Teen Seated Next to Michelle Obama

By: Mark Fitzgerald Chicago Tribune Southwest Bureau Chief Howard Witt doesn't claim to be responsible for seating teenager Ty'Sheoma Bethea next to the First Lady at President Barack Obama's speech to Congress Tuesday night -- but facts are facts.

At the very least, Witt put into motion the sequence of events that led the teenage student from an impoverished school -- someone who had never been in a plane before -- to the mezzanine seat next to Michelle Obama, and a standing ovation from the joint session of Congress when President Obama read parts of her letter in his speech.

"The whole thing was kind of a real story of serendipity," Witt said Wednesday.

It started a few weeks ago when Witt, who is based in Houston, decided to travel to South Carolina to report on one poor school district's hopes for aid from the stimulus bill that was being debated by Congress. He chose the J.V. Martin Junior High School in Dillon, S.C., which he described in a later article as "a decrepit facility where the roof leaks and winter classroom temperatures hover in the 50s."

As it happened just before the night before he arrived at the school, which Barack Obama had visited twice during his campaign, the president mentioned the school again in his first press conference.

At the school, Witt decided to talk with some students to see how much they knew about the stimulus package, and what effect it might have on them. Just by random he chose a rusty trailer, where an eighth grade social studies class was underway.

"Ty'Sheoma and one other student were the only ones who seemed to have a clue about the bill," Witt said. The girl told Witt she was afraid it might not pass, and the school would not get any financial help.

The conversation seemed to have sparked something in Ty'Sheoma, who went to the public library to write a letter to Congress urging passage of the stiumulus bill. The next morning she asked the school principal for a stamp to mail it. Sensing her urgency, the principal scanned the letter and e-mailed it to the state Congressional delegation, and to Witt.

The principal also told him the story of the student's efforts, and asked if he could somehow get the letter to the White House. Witt was able only to give her a phone number for the president's press office.

Witt was just about to write his story about the junior high school when the principal told him about Ty'Sheoma. "Instantly, that became my lede because it was such a poignant story," he said.

Whether it was the attention the Tribune story gave the letter, or someone in the White House who realized Obama might be interested in it, the letter ended up in front of the president, who invited the girl to Washington.

In his speech Tuesday, Obama read this excerpt from the letter: "We are just students trying to become lawyers, doctors, congressmen like yourself and one day president, so we can make a change to not just the state of South Carolina but also the world. We are not quitters."

The audience of congressmen, Supreme Court justices and others erupted in a standing ovation for the girl.

"What's significant and serendipitous about it is that if I had not been there to sort of spark the conversation, and this girl hadn't had the spunk and iniitiative she had, it all might never have happened," Witt said. "This could be a life-changing experience for her."