Debate Memories: The Inside Story

An estimated 800 college staff members, students, and volunteers provided the labor that made the Vice Presidential debate at Centre such a success. Here are a few of their memories of unforgettable moments related to the historic debate at Centre.

The saga of John Glenn's cell phone
Student: Les Fugate (Centre '02)
"My twin brother, Wes, and I, along with Student Congress President Jed Doty, had the enormous task of checking in all of the electronic devices that the ticketed guests brought with them to the debate hall, i.e. cameras, palm pilots, cell phones, and pagers. [These devices were not allowed in the hall, by order of the Secret Service.] At one point I heard my brother ask a man to check in his cell phone. The man replied, 'I have flown into space, and I know that I can take a cell phone into the debate hall.' Sure enough, it was Senator John Glenn from Ohio. Then I heard a Secret Service agent reply 'Senator, if you do not give that gentleman your cell phone, you won't get to see the debate.' Despite my years as an usher at the Norton Center, this was not the usual encounter! All in all, the debate was one of the greatest -- if not the greatest -- experiences of my life. I have only one final comment: When do we apply for the Olympics?"

Hot tips, bizarre questions, and the power of a scream:
Views from the Help Desk
John Erwin, volunteer (Centre '87), and Ann Young, staff coordinator of debate volunteers
Young: "The Help Desk, which was set up inside Carnegie to answer any question and resolve any problem, proved to be a wild, interesting place. We had a bank of five phones that rarely stopped ringing, and there was a constant throng of people needing help of some sort. The most memorable moment for me came about 30 minutes before the debate when a debate official suddenly appeared to offer five tickets for admission to the debate hall. Tickets were a rare prize, and the five women students working at the help desk gave a collective scream of joy. The noise brought two Secret Service agents diving through the door from their posts outside. The students were only mildly embarrassed, and after I assured them they could leave the help desk, they happily headed for the debate hall."

Erwin: "People called the help desk with all sorts of strange questions, but two callers really stand out in my mind. Both of these calls came in while the debate was underway. The first was a woman from Charlotte, N.C., who said it was urgent that I get a message to Bernard Shaw asking him to allow the candidates more time to answer the questions. The other call was from a woman who informed me that she was "from Nebraska which isn't too far from Wyoming, you know." After explaining that she had a professional background in the performing arts, she asked if I could deliver a message to Mr. Cheney letting him know that he looked very presidential on television. I thanked each caller but, needless to say, those messages were not delivered."

Johnny Rotten's interview, Bruce Morton's dilemma,
and the mouse that bit back
Debate co-chairs: Richard Trollinger and Clarence Wyatt (Centre '78)

Wyatt: "One of the things we wanted to do throughout the debate process was get the name of Centre College wherever there was going to be a camera. The crowning moment in our quest for publicity -- at least at the political conventions -- occurred in Los Angeles when some students and I were interviewed by Johnny Rotten. His name may be familiar if you were devotees of the punk scene in the eighties. Johnny Rotten was a member of a group with the lovely name of the Sex Pistols. He has now become a political commentator and was doing a documentary on why young people do not engage in the political process. Our students were interviewed for twenty-five minutes." Trollinger: "And our students, polite as they are, referred to him throughout the interview as 'Mr. Rotten.'"

Trollinger: "Bruce Morton and a crew came from CNN and spent the better part of two days on campus and in the community preparing a five-minute segment for CNN's Inside Politics. The evening of their first day in Danville, Morton's assistant called and said, 'We've got a problem. We need to find somebody in town who will say a bad word about the plans to hold a debate in Danville and at Centre. We've talked to dozens of people today on the streets, and we can't find anyone who will say a negative thing about this.' It didn't take long to come up with a couple of names, but even those complaints were mild: the debate was going to inconvenience people, it would disrupt traffic -- that was most negative comment they could find."

Wyatt: "At the beginning of what we called the 'Save the Debate campaign,' we realized that most of the world really wouldn’t care if the debate did not come to Danville and to Centre College, but that they well might care if the debates failed to come, for the first time, to a small college. So we began to position ourselves as the mouse that bit back. We mounted a campaign with the news media to talk about why it was important for a debate to come to small town and rural America. It worked quite well by the time things were over."

(Excerpted from a presentation to the Centre Parents Association during Family Weekend, Oct. 28, 2000. Full text. debmemRTCW.html)



					Debate Memories: The Inside Story An estimated 800 college staff members, students, and volunteers provided the labor that made the Vice Presidential debate at Centre such a success. Here are a few of their memories of unforgettable moments related to the historic debate at Centre. The saga of John Glenn's cell phone Student: Les Fugate (Centre '02) "My twin brother, Wes, and I, along with Student Congress President Jed Doty, had the enormous task of checking in all of the electronic devices that the ticketed guests brought with them to the debate hall, i.e. cameras, palm pilots, cell phones, and pagers. [These devices were not allowed in the hall, by order of the Secret Service.] At one point I heard my brother ask a man to check in his cell phone. The man replied, 'I have flown into space, and I know that I can take a cell phone into the debate hall.' Sure enough, it was Senator John Glenn from Ohio. Then I heard a Secret Service agent reply 'Senator, if you do not give that gentleman your cell phone, you won't get to see the debate.' Despite my years as an usher at the Norton Center, this was not the usual encounter! All in all, the debate was one of the greatest -- if not the greatest -- experiences of my life. I have only one final comment: When do we apply for the Olympics?" Hot tips, bizarre questions, and the power of a scream: Views from the Help Desk John Erwin, volunteer (Centre '87), and Ann Young, staff coordinator of debate volunteers Young: "The Help Desk, which was set up inside Carnegie to answer any question and resolve any problem, proved to be a wild, interesting place. We had a bank of five phones that rarely stopped ringing, and there was a constant throng of people needing help of some sort. The most memorable moment for me came about 30 minutes before the debate when a debate official suddenly appeared to offer five tickets for admission to the debate hall. Tickets were a rare prize, and the five women students working at the help desk gave a collective scream of joy. The noise brought two Secret Service agents diving through the door from their posts outside. The students were only mildly embarrassed, and after I assured them they could leave the help desk, they happily headed for the debate hall." Erwin: "People called the help desk with all sorts of strange questions, but two callers really stand out in my mind. Both of these calls came in while the debate was underway. The first was a woman from Charlotte, N.C., who said it was urgent that I get a message to Bernard Shaw asking him to allow the candidates more time to answer the questions. The other call was from a woman who informed me that she was "from Nebraska which isn't too far from Wyoming, you know." After explaining that she had a professional background in the performing arts, she asked if I could deliver a message to Mr. Cheney letting him know that he looked very presidential on television. I thanked each caller but, needless to say, those messages were not delivered." Johnny Rotten's interview, Bruce Morton's dilemma, and the mouse that bit back Debate co-chairs: Richard Trollinger and Clarence Wyatt (Centre '78) Wyatt: "One of the things we wanted to do throughout the debate process was get the name of Centre College wherever there was going to be a camera. The crowning moment in our quest for publicity -- at least at the political conventions -- occurred in Los Angeles when some students and I were interviewed by Johnny Rotten. His name may be familiar if you were devotees of the punk scene in the eighties. Johnny Rotten was a member of a group with the lovely name of the Sex Pistols. He has now become a political commentator and was doing a documentary on why young people do not engage in the political process. Our students were interviewed for twenty-five minutes." Trollinger: "And our students, polite as they are, referred to him throughout the interview as 'Mr. Rotten.'" Trollinger: "Bruce Morton and a crew came from CNN and spent the better part of two days on campus and in the community preparing a five-minute segment for CNN's Inside Politics. The evening of their first day in Danville, Morton's assistant called and said, 'We've got a problem. We need to find somebody in town who will say a bad word about the plans to hold a debate in Danville and at Centre. We've talked to dozens of people today on the streets, and we can't find anyone who will say a negative thing about this.' It didn't take long to come up with a couple of names, but even those complaints were mild: the debate was going to inconvenience people, it would disrupt traffic -- that was most negative comment they could find." Wyatt: "At the beginning of what we called the 'Save the Debate campaign,' we realized that most of the world really wouldn’t care if the debate did not come to Danville and to Centre College, but that they well might care if the debates failed to come, for the first time, to a small college. So we began to position ourselves as the mouse that bit back. We mounted a campaign with the news media to talk about why it was important for a debate to come to small town and rural America. It worked quite well by the time things were over." (Excerpted from a presentation to the Centre Parents Association during Family Weekend, Oct. 28, 2000. Full text. debmemRTCW.html)