Detroit — Editor’s Note: The following are a series of blogs contributed by SHSU professor Mike Yawn and students who are members of the Political Science Junior Fellows on a four-day trip last week to Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania.



By Mike Yawn

Special to The Item

 

The Political Science Junior Fellows at Sam Houston State University embarked Thursday, Nov. 18, on a four-day trip is built around the American Association of Political Consultants Conference in Akron, Ohio.  

In addition to attending a two-day conference, members of the organization have planned 18-hour days that will carry them to three states and more than 20 sites.

The AAPCC is held annually, but this year’s conference was sweetened by the wonderful Bliss Institute at Akron University.  The Bliss Institute offered to subsidize student participation at the event and, as a result, each member got a plane ticket, hotel, rental car, and conference registration for approximately $400.

Moreover, the students were able to learn the nuts and bolts of campaigns, from general campaign strategies, to media relations, to the ethics of the campaign trail and the profession — all while networking with high-level consultants across the country.  

But the conference was only part of the trip.  Students visited more than 20 major tourist destinations in three states, venues as diverse and interesting as the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, President McKinley’s Home, Brandywine Falls, the Pro Football Hall of Fame, the Motown Historical Museum, Dean Martin’s hometown, the Andy Warhol Museum of Art, the house from A Christmas Story, and many others.  

The trip fits in well within the mission of the organization, which is to promote professionalism, education, and public service.  And while many of these educational opportunities focus on politics—they will see three presidential homes and museums this trip—the organization has pursued a diverse set of learning experiences.  

The students—and I—are grateful to The Bliss Institute for this wonderful educational opportunity and to The Huntsville Item for the chance to share our experiences.  



Day 1



Mike Yawn

Hi, I’m Mike Yawn, the Political Science Junior Fellows’ adviser.  The students have just finished their first day of a four-day trip that will take them to a national political conference and three states.  I’ll let the students tell their own stories, but I will be passing on some background and contextual information that may provide a broader perspective.

The students ended the day pretty tired.  Their morning started—with one exception—at 2:30 am.  They went to bed about 21 hours later.  In between, they drove to Hobby Airport, flew to St. Louis, flew to Detroit, visited the Mariners Church of Detroit, the GM Headquarters, Woodward Avenue, the Wayne County Building, the Guardian Building, Greektown, the Motown Historical Museum, and the Rutherford B. Hayes Home and Museum.

The organization has undertaken about a dozen of these types of trips.  Because financial and time constraints typically limit the number of days the students can spend away from school, they do extensive research on prospective destinations so that they can see as many sites as possible while still taking gaining a substantive appreciation of each venue.  Here’s some background that came from their research and visits from Day One:

Mariners Church of Detroit: This church was immortalized following the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald on Lake Superior in 1975.  The wreck, which resulted in the loss of twenty-nine crew members, received national attention.  The church was immortalized however, in the song “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” which hit number 1 for Gordon Lightfoot in 1976.  In the song, Lightfoot referred to the church as the “Maritime Sailors Cathedral.”

Martin Luther King gave an early version of his “I Have a Dream” speech on Woodward Avenue in June 1963.

The Wayne County Building is a magnificent Baroque structure that once served as the Wayne County Courthouse.  Its construction was completed in 1902 at a then staggering sum of 1.6 million dollars.   Henry Ford worked here in the early 1900s, and Clarence Darrow once defended a client in the building’s courthouse.  By the 1970s, however, many county departments moved out of the building to save costs.  Today, the building houses a small daycare center.

The Guardian Building was the most interesting structure we visited.  It is more than 600 feet tall and was built in 1929.  It originally housed many financial businesses, and was known as the “Cathedral of Commerce.”  Today, it houses many Wayne County officials,  who, interestingly, were once housed in the Wayne County Building.

Greektown:  The Political Science Junior Fellows have a rule: they can’t eat at chain restaurants.  On the first day of their trip, they ventured into to Greektown to find a restaurant.  Greektown has approximately ten Greek restaurants in a 3-4 block stretch.  The second oldest of these restaurants was Laikon Café, which opened in 1927.  The students did a good job of trying and sharing different menu items, including three types of Greek lasagna, roasted lamb, spinach pie, hummus, babaghanoush, and tzatsiki.    

Day Two Preview:

Tomorrow, the students will spend the bulk of the day at the American Association of Political Consultants Conference, attending panels on general campaign strategy, new media v. old media, ethics, and prospects for the 2012 presidential race.  One of the more interesting aspects of the conference is that the students will have the opportunity to have lunch with a “campaign manager,” a campaign expert who has similar interests with each of the students and who may provide career guidance or networking opportunities.

 

Cameron Goodman

My name is Cameron Goodman, and I am a senior majoring in Political Science at Sam Houston State University.

Today marked the start of our four-day journey throughout the upper Midwest. The trip started early at 3:40 am in the morning. For the first time in my Junior Fellow career I was actually the first person to arrive at our rendezvous spot which, besides being a miracle itself, meant that I got some bragging rights for the trip. John Daywalt filled in my usual role of being the late Junior Fellow after an alarm mishap, but we quickly regrouped and made it to the airport on schedule.

We touched down in Detroit at around 11:30 am and made our way into central Detroit. I couldn’t help but be reminded of my Canadian roots as we passed the tunnel leading into Canada while Gordon Lightfoot’s “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” helped set the mood for our trip to the Mariners’ Church of Detroit.

After visiting the Mariners’ Church we headed into Greektown in downtown Detroit. When we arrived we found a small restaurant named the Laikon Café. It has been in operation since 1927, which makes it the second oldest Greek restaurant still open in Greektown. The food was excellent and it was easy to see why the restaurant has been in business for 83 years.

The next stop of the day was the Motown Historical Museum. The museum didn’t match up directly with what I had envisioned, but it was still very exciting to be able to see the studio where the likes of Marvin Gaye, the Temptations, and the Supremes recorded some of their biggest hits. The museum also offered an interesting perspective into how the business of Motown Records began and grew into the powerhouse that it became.

We closed the evening by stopping Rutherford Hayes’ house.  It was much bigger than I expected, being more of a castle than a house.  My only comparison, however, was Bill Clinton’s modest home in Hope, AR.  

I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s events, which include an all-day conference, a trip to the Cleveland Art Museum, and dinner at the riverfront.  It’s great that SHSU students are given these opportunities, and I also appreciate the fact that The Huntsville Item is carrying our blogs.



Dana Angello

Howdy! My name is Dana Angello and I am the Vice President of the Political Science Junior Fellows. I am so excited to take a four-day whirlwind trip to Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. And it all began this morning at 4:00 am when we left Huntsville for Houston in order to make our 6:30 flight to Detroit. The travel went surprisingly well, and I even was able to enjoy a cup of hot chocolate while stretching out on the plane!

Once we got to Detroit, we were able to do some sightseeing. We visited the Mariners’ Church of Detroit, which commemorated 29 seamen who died when their ship wrecked after being caught in a storm on Lake Superior.

 The wreck was made famous by Gordon Lightfoot, who paid tribute to the sailors and the surviving families. The church was a beautiful gothic structure that was originally built a couple of blocks from where it now sits.  The relocation process was so significant, that traffic in the area stopped for twenty-one days! The church was magnificent, but I was also captivated by a statue of George Washington which was donated by the Free Masons of Detroit. The Mariners’ Church was a fantastic place to begin sightseeing.

Once we had taken a significant number of pictures, Professor Yawn grew tired of my laments about how hungry I was, so we decided to find a place to eat. We made the long, very cold walk to Greektown and ate at Laikon, which has been serving delicious Greek food since the 1920s. Before this lunch, my Greek food experience only consisted of gyros, so I decided it was time to expand my knowledge of Greek food.  It was a wise choice: the pastitsio, with lamb, macaroni, and a Greek sauce, provided to be just the ticket to satiating my growling stomach.  

Once we had sufficiently stuffed ourselves, we drove to the Motown Historical Museum, the record company created by Barry Gordy.  The museum was fairly interesting and it was certainly quite a feeling to stand in the studio where the likes of Diana Ross and Michael Jackson spent so many hours recording their groundbreaking albums. In fact, Martin Luther King, Jr. even recorded his “I have a Dream” speech as well as his speech titled “Why I am Opposed to the War in Vietnam” in the very same studio where we were stood. It was exciting to learn about a company that paved the way for so many African-American musicians.

After our exploration of the Motown Era, we headed toward Cleveland to eat and sightsee, but not before our unsettling experience at a KFC where bullet-proof glass was protecting the workers behind the counter. We got out of there as soon as we could.

The more time we spent in the car on the way to Cleveland, the more excited I got about tomorrow. Most certainly, it will be a long day, but I can’t wait for the American Association of Political Consultants Conference in Akron. There are many great panelists, including high-level political consultants and university professors. But the education and fun will not stop there. After the conference, we will head back to Cleveland for the evening, eating at yet another intriguing restaurant and visiting the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Hopefully, tonight we will get enough rest and take our vitamins so that tomorrow we are ready and rearin’ to go for more fun!



John Daywalt

Hi, this is John Daywalt, a sophomore at Sam Houston State University and a member of the Political Science Junior Fellows.  We are finishing our first day of a four-day trip to Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.  

To make the most of the trip, organizational members put countless hours into planning and researching so that we will have the background information necessary to absorb information.  In fact, the trip has turned into a research project of sorts, and we are all very excited to be a part of this experience.

Being in the Army I am almost always on time, if not early, but this morning I slept straight through my alarm. After getting numerous wake up calls from anxious organizational members, I quickly awoke at 3:30—the exact time I was supposed to be at our meeting place.  Luckily, I only postponed our group a few minutes since I was already packed.

 Once in Detroit, our first stop was the Mariner’s Church of Detroit, a church listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971. The church was founded in 1849 to provide a place for mariners to stop for spiritual support. In front of the church stands a statue of George Washington characterized by numerous Masonic symbols.  As it turned out, the statue was donated by the Freemasons.  The gothic style building seems somewhat out of place being adjacent to the skyscrapers of the General Motors Headquarters, but I really enjoyed the church. .

We then ate lunch at a Greek restaurant called the Laikon Café. I travelled to Greece a couple years ago, and wasn’t  fond of the food at the time.  However, the pastitsio at this restaurant was excellent, and I may have to reconsider my views of Greek food.  

I was most looking forward to the Motown Historic Museum.  Unfortunately, the museum didn’t quite live up to my hopes.  Nonetheless, it was interesting, and I enjoyed seeing Michael Jackson memorabilia and the 19th-century piano played by Motown greats such as Marvin Gaye.  

Tomorrow we’ll be at the Political Consultants Outreach Conference for most of the day.  I’m most looking forward to the session on campaign strategy, but I am sure the entire day will be educational!



Ryan Brim

Hello! My name is Ryan Brim and I’m the 11-year-old “Junior-Junior Fellow,” as I am referred to by the Political Science Junior Fellows at Sam Houston State University. I am so ecstatic that I’m going on a four-day trip to three northern states: Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.  

My trip started with an early wakeup call around 3:15. From there, we drove to Hobby and boarded a plane to St. Louis and boarded another plane to Detroit.

While I was in Detroit, I visited the Mariners Church, which honored 29 men who died on the Edmund Fitzgerald.  I also went to Greektown, where I ate a delicious roasted lamb sandwich with french fries.  Finally, I visited the Motown Historical Museum which was not what I expected, although it was very informative.

My favorite thing today was probably my lunch.  I had tasted lamb before, at Niko Nikos in Houston, but I think today’s food was better.  

Tomorrow, I’m going to start the day off by attending a seminar with the American Association of Political Consultants.  I will attend one early seminar and one afternoon seminar.  The other students will have to attend all of the seminars, but I don’t have to because I am eleven.  

I can’t wait until tomorrow’s adventure!